


Smoke Signals

by vanceypants



Series: Sunshowers [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Dubious Morality, M/M, Trans Rich Goranski, Transphobia, Underage Sex, implied onesided expensive headphones, squipshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-06-16 22:38:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 32
Words: 36,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanceypants/pseuds/vanceypants
Summary: Before the fire, there was Emily Goranski, fourteen years old and too anxious to even befriend his own shadow.  But one edible supercomputer from Japan is about to change all of that, and bring out the man Emily never dreamed he could be.  From book burnings to drug dealings, watch as Emily becomes Rich, and watch as Rich becomes Completely and Totally In Over His Head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What started out as a small Camp Nanowrimo experiment has become my first completed multichapter fic within this fandom. I know that squip origin fics have been covered before within this fandom, and maybe another one is the exact last thing anyone ever wanted, but I hope some people find some enjoyment in my own little interpretation of how this might have gone down for Rich Goranski.  
> Some warnings before we get started, because I do know there are some things here that maybe need to be touched upon, or might need to be warned:  
> 1\. Not a warning, just a fact. In this, and really in all my fics that feature Rich, Rich is transgender. I always headcanon him this way, and it does play a part in the plot here pretty centrally.  
> 2\. A warning on that behalf: this fic does feature incidents of misgendering and transphobia, both internal and external. There are also scenes with incorrect or outdated terminology being used. I do not condone transphobia in any way, shape, or form, and I believe staying informed and respectful is important when it comes to interactions with anyone. I warn this now because I do not want to cause any sort of pain or discomfort with my writing.  
> 3\. There are scenes of underage sex within this work. These scenes do feature an adult (appearing to be adult, at the very least) male and an emotionally vulnerable teenager.  
> 4\. Although nothing is explicitly stated or shown, there is implied childhood sexual abuse and non-consensual incest within this work.  
> 5\. As far as ships go, I will come right out and state that this is a Rich Goranski/Rich's Squip fic. There is implied one sided Rich/Michael as well, though that's something that would be more explored in a sequel (if I ever get up the energy to get that far).  
> 6\. I tried to stay as canon compliant as I could, but I know I definitely took liberties with the source material. I hope that none of these liberties disrupt the reading experience too greatly. This was a treat to write, and I hope it can be as much of one to read.  
> With those warnings out of the way, I will be posting updates for this every Thursday, unless otherwise stated. Some chapters are smaller than others, but I'll try to post a decent amount each week. Now with that, sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy the little show (and goodness, this was a novel's worth of notes on its own. My bad!).

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Rich lay hypnotized by the silence of Jeremy’s body.

He was enveloped in all the lack of silence that each blip and bleep and monitorized vibration of artificial life support pulsed into his frail body, a beacon of stillness surrounded by a cacophony of hospital equipment, beautifully mute, gorgeously suffering.

Not that Rich could see his body, with the curtain pulled between them. The curtain was green, frilly, and soaked in bacteria of patients long gone. It was both enemy and friend, the most familiar companion Rich had in these confines. It clanged whenever a nurse or doctor adjusted it.

Or in this case, when one of the officers fiddled with the cloth as the other two regarded him. One clutched a notebook in grisled hand, pen scribbling over parchment as though the tape recorder in the other’s hand might miss some of Rich’s confession.

“I really don’t remember.” Rich wondered when he was supposed to ask for a lawyer. Maybe that was a right that only adults were granted, or good people. Innocent people. Or maybe it was more of a sign of guilt, to ask for a lawyer when you hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t know, and it occurred to him that these were exactly the sorts of questions a lawyer might be able to answer.

It also occurred to him that lawyers were for people with money, and people with tragic, bleeding hearts from false accusations. People who’d done everything right, who had never steered wrong.

Except Rich had done something wrong. His skin peeled back from his bones in revulsion underneath his bandages. He swallowed, but the sensation caught on the collar of his hospital gown.

“Just tell us what you do remember, son.”

The way he said son--the one with the mustache and the creased eyes and the dust of grey hairs along his temples--was patronizing and insincere, and it made Rich bubble up with need. To be called son, to be cherished and possessed in the way only a parent could hold a child. It was nearly enough to break himself open there, to twist and tear loose his heart and mind and guts and spill every sordid drop of acid and bile onto the hospital bed. Here, he could present himself. Here it was. Confession of his sins, signed, sealed, and delivered.

“I...” Rich glanced towards the curtain. Jeremy hadn’t been here long. Maybe one day. Maybe three. He’d been at the party too, hadn’t he? His vision swam inward, and his stomach turned. He clutched the blanket so hard the burns on his hands split and popped. He felt the wetness of pus and blood soak through gauze, his eyes swollen with tears. “I don’t remember.”

He could have given something. A moment, an appeasement. A flash of underage drinking and debauchery. A spark-

Spark wasn’t a word he wanted to consider here. He wanted to dig his fingernails into his open wounds and tear away every bit of char. 

He watched one of the officers huff softly. He clicked the pen, his eyes rolling behind his glasses towards his compatriot.

A nurse parted one of the modesty curtains, a terse smile on her face. “Gentlemen,” She nodded towards them. “Richard really needs some rest. Maybe we can continue this another time.”

It was a kindness, Rich couldn’t help but realize, how readily his name was communicated. The tears in his eyes prickled and stung and petrified his eyes, fossilized his skin as they glazed his face. 

“We’ll stop by again tomorrow,” One of the cops said, as another reached out, uncomfortably taking one of Rich’s cracked, bloodied hands in a firm, brisk shake.

As though it were a meeting between friends and equals, though the buzz-crackle-stop of the tape recorder quickly reminded Rich of his inferiority, his criminality, his complete lack of humanity.

The nurse ushered them out, the smile remaining up until the moment their footsteps erased into distant muteness. She sighed, shaking her head. “They really shouldn’t be troubling you right now. The psychiatrist said…”

It wasn’t so much that she trailed off, rather that Rich couldn’t bring himself to pay much attention. Or maybe it was impossible to pay attention or maybe the words were jumbled in his brain, which had to be as burned and shriveled as the rest of his skin. The brain was a sensitive organ, all folds and soft tissues. And Rich’s had always been unsteady anyway, even before the...even before the...even before…

Even before. He could leave it at that. Even thinking the forbidden words seemed a trial, a test he wasn’t ready to overcome, especially when lying to the police moments before about his lack of knowledge.

“Do you need anything, dear?”

“No thank you.” Rich had forgotten how simple manners felt. The meekness that came with please and thank you, how small he could make himself feel with pure submission of attitude. He nestled into the blankets, and tried to force a smile, the crookedness of his own lips only managing to tug at sensitive skin grafts in his cheek.

He must have looked like a puzzle of gore, of gristle and half-realized parts. He blinked, shocked that his eyes were already dry again, though his face felt tight from his earlier tears.

Rich glanced at the curtain, separating him from the one constant figure during his time here. Michael showed up, occasionally. Would offer Rich a few words of news, of encouragement, of passing kindness, before politely excusing himself to Jeremy’s side of the room. But those visits were cut short more often than not by well intentioned nurses or doctors doing their rounds.

Which left Rich and Jeremy together, separated only by a curtain and Rich’s bandages and Jeremy’s lack of consciousness. Sometimes, Rich considered limping out of his bed, pulling himself into Jeremy’s bed, and remaining pressed close. As though the force of their bodies might be enough to heal them both, or maybe just to try to silence his gnawing loneliness.

Or maybe to assuage the guilt.

Because Jeremy wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for…

“...I guess we can add liar to my growing list of bullshit, huh?” Rich forced a laugh, raspy, threadbare sound that left him coughing after. The force of any sort of emoting was almost more than he was built to withstand. He was meant to silently suffer, to be still and weather whatever storms his body was meant to conduct. Jeremy was so much better at that than he was, ever the doll of a victim. He knew that the best thing to do after fucking everything up was to bow your head and give yourself away so thoroughly that you had nothing left to ever have to personally digest.

Not force a chuckle and struggle with the urge to awkwardly rub the back of his neck with hands too tender to move after the spark of a match he’d clutched himself.

It was unfair to compare, though. To find any bliss in Jeremy’s state, when he might never wake up.

No. That wasn’t something Rich could bring himself to consider. Better to talk, the words now just as coping as the silence around the cops had been earlier.

“Liar, arsonist, drug dealer, bully...it really isn’t a very pretty list, is it?” Rich briefly touched his teeth against his bottom lip, only to drag them away. They were raw, chapped, and he couldn’t comprehend adding anymore sensation to his body now. 

Although did he ever wish he had something to itch the low ache of sensation in his arms. He ignored it, stuffed it down in the same area where he found himself tearing memories loose.

“I do remember,” Rich breathed. He took in a breath, not deep enough to satisfy his craving for fresh, cold oxygen, but enough to keep him conscious. To keep him alive.

Some days, that was all he could manage.

Some days, he realized he hadn't changed all that much. That even now, burned and sullied and irradiated with his own poor decisions, he really wasn’t much different from the scared kid pulling his bike from the porch to take himself to the last day of school freshman year.

“I remember everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

“If I don’t get more than one signature today, I’m going to off myself.”

Emily stared into the mirror, cross-legged on the floor. Her hands reached up, strumming through her homemade haircut and forced a smile to crease the freckles on her cheeks. She dropped it immediately, watched with interest the way her skin would briefly hold the action, before finally smoothing into babyfat oblivion.

The extreme melodrama of talking to herself briefly lifted her mood, if only for a few seconds. But now wasn’t the time to allow herself a smile.

She waited a moment, scooting her ass against the scratched carpet towards the cracked door. Cody had thrown another fit last week, torn off the lock when she’d been trying to change into her leotard, and now she could see through the wood in spots if she squinted hard enough at the cracks. She stared, looked for her brother (she couldn’t see him) and strained her ears to listen for her father’s whiskey snores (she could still hear him), and considered techniques.

There were razorblades, of course. Or hanging. Or pills. 

Her favorite one to think about, she decided as she poured her feet into her only pair of shoes, a hand-me-down from her mother before the first all those years ago. The laces were singed even after all these years, and Emily’s toes pressed too tightly against the fronts of them.

She was starting to outgrow her mother. There was something profoundly sad about that realization.

She pushed it down, though.

Because she hadn’t acknowledged her favorite technique to consider. Had slammed it just as firmly down as she’d slammed her feet into the shoes. The best technique, by far, was laying on the train tracks. She’d seen videos online, in blurry, dial up low quality, of people who’d been run over by trains. Bodies bisected and shocked, torsos convulsing. That was the sort of suffering, of gorgeous misery, that she could get behind.

But it was time to go to school, and to move on to her favorite subject right after considering suicide options:

Testing out male pronouns.

“Isn’t he looking handsome today?” Emily lisped as she left her bedroom and spun around the kitchen. She hopped onto the counter, too short to reach without pulling herself higher. She looked through her breakfast options: a can of tuna fish and a jar of pickled radishes. She decided on the tuna, stuffing the can into her dress pocket, and grabbing her backpack off the table, though not before shooing away one of the newer ginger cats that had decided to take up refuge in their home.

Home was too kind a word for the squalor they lived in.

Still, at least it brought some joy to the cats. She smiled, cupping the cat’s face between her hands and nuzzling their noses together. “Have a good day, Demetri. Take care of the boys, will ya?”

Her greetings continued on autopilot as she left the house, as her mind continued its game. His shoes. His cats. His house. His poverty. His pink Huffy.

Not a perfect game, Emily decided, staring at the ribbons on her bike handles and sighing softly.

It was only once outside of the trailer that he let himself switch over completely. Emily turned off she/her/hers, and embraced he/him/his. Something in his chest loosened as he kicked one leg over his bike, foot digging into the pedal with a poised ease. He pulled himself onto the seat, the frayed edges of his dress fluttering in the balmy summer heat.

“Bye, Felix! Bye, Admiral! Bye, Donavan,” Sarah, Adrian, Pip, Maurice. All the familiar names of the cats mewing towards him as he carried himself away from his father, away from his brother, away from the rickety trailer his mom had died in, where he was sure to follow suit, away from his pronouns and expectations.

Because for half the ride, Emily could ride in a state of bliss. He popped in his headphones, sound only echoing through the left earbud. But it was okay. Today, he managed to get through three and a half songs before the power tapered out. Three and a half songs of hard masculinity and rigid lines and it occurred to him that if he could figure out how to match their rhythm, maybe then he wouldn’t have to count suicide methods every morning while he brushed his teeth.

Without the music, the second half of Emily’s ride wasn’t nearly as euphoric. He pedaled slowly, concentrating both on keeping his skirt from slipping upward, and on his options. It was the last day, he could very well ditch and there’d be no repercussions. 

But he wouldn’t get his yearbook.

But then he wouldn’t have to worry about how no one outside of Jake would sign said yearbook.

But then he wouldn’t see Jake.

And Jake was going to Germany for two months.

Emily’s arms, poised to steer the bike into another direction, flexed as he steeled himself. School it was then, if only to see Jake off. It would be hard enough, he reasoned, to get through the summer without him. He didn’t need to add a lack of goodbye into the mix to make it even worse.

Of course, he told himself wryly, if he just killed himself tonight, he wouldn’t have to worry about grieving his solitude or just how badly he’s miss his only friend. He’d just be worm food, still and silent and peaceful. Maybe some of his classmates would pretend they’d been really close, and they’d have an assembly-

No, it was summer after today. There’d be no assemblies. He’d be swallowed by the heat and tranquility of the season and come next school year, at best he’d be a minor intercom announcement between the pledge and the lunch specials.

There were worse ways to be memorialized, he supposed.

Middle Borough High finally loomed into Emily's view of vision, thus quenching any lingering euphoria that came merely from exiting the misery of his house. His pronouns fractured, wavering in and out. It was the last day of school, if there was ever a time to be out and proud...

But Emily didn't even know the proper words for it, let alone grasp anything as tremulous as pride. He'd tried to learn, tried on the library computer one period a few months ago. Had even managed a few moments of research before the librarian had promptly yanked him from his seat, dragged him to the office, and complained to the principal that "this young lady was looking up filth on school property."

It hadn't been a fun phone call to his father at all. 

So research to figure out the best terms and conditions to assign his own body was out. What Emily needed was an insider, someone with advanced knowledge about queer discourse and gender politics and what it really meant to hear stories about gender reassignment surgery and wonder "maybe that could be for me."

Or maybe what Emily needed was some shock treatment.

Either way, he clung to his pronouns, but kept the sway to his hips, as he dumped his bike at the communal bike stand, and gravitated in through the doors of his school.

Middle Borough did not part around him. Emily wasn't a pariah, wasn't a leper that couldn't be touched. Emily was a non-entity. The flow continued to ease around him, bumping and jostling backpack and small frame alike as others exited the building, or entered the building, or sidestepped the building, or fucking waltzed because honestly how many times could the same person step on Emily's feet, and Emily waited for a hello that never came. Waited for a greeting of any sort, waited to be picked out by eyes or voice or touch.

Waited even though he knew it would never happen. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and burrowed his shoulders tightly around himself, and made himself as compact as possible. It wasn't a difficult state to be in, for someone who'd been constructed with such little mass.

Emily carried himself to his locker, and felt his ears burn at the chunks of lipstick gore massacred across the metal.

"Not very original, huh?"

Emily had forgotten his quest to be spoken to. He glanced up, as Jeremy stood at his own locker, two arms within the confines as he emptied out a years worth of papers into one cloth sack. Jeremy smiled, a sad sort of smile that was too familiar. Familiar because Jeremy always seemed to wear a layer of sadness and humiliation? Or familiar because Emily had often seen the same expression on his own face time and time again?

Emily could have been his friend, he realized with a start. He could have spent the whole school year speaking to him, maybe to Michael too, and he could have tripled his friend count and maybe built some happy memories.

That involved more communication than he was capable of giving. He searched his mind, seeking out every word that didn't contain an 's'.

"Yeah," He finally said. Always yeah. Never yes. "Pretty dumb." He tugged a fistful of tissue from his bag, familiar with the ritual. 

Dyke.

He almost wished it were true, he mused, as he rubbed away at the stain on his locker. To be a lesbian, that was a state of being he could understand. It was easy. A girl who liked other girls.

And Emily did like girls.

He just didn't like girls as a girl. And how did you reconcile that fact with yourself, when the slurs thrown his way were so much easier?

Besides, he was pretty sure he liked guys too, which made it even more conflicting. Because if Emily really and truly born wrong, was meant to align as male instead of female, then why would he still lust after tall frames and calloused hands and cologne?

"They get my locker all the time too." Jeremy swayed on his feet, fiddling with his straps, before offering another smile. "Maybe, you know, we could exchange yearbooks later or something. I won't write, uh, that, if you're worried."

"Yeah," Emily breathed. Another student, wanting to sign his yearbook. And olive branch and a sign, an execution deferment. A signature without any prompting, without Emily first having to waddle forward, present yearbook and pen and hold his breath that the pages and memories wouldn't be scribbled with obscenities instead. "I mean, no, I didn't think you'd call me a carpetmuncher or anything," He grinned, and felt his heart patter happily as Jeremy laughed.

"I mean, that sounds sort of like a compliment, though. Or, um, if it were directed at me it would be, right?"

"Well, yeah. Boys are supposed to eat pussy, right?"

Shit. He'd let himself get too comfortable. The lisp clung between them like Christmas lights, garish in the middle of April on someone's dirty gutters. Emily's face burned, as his ears went fuzzy and soft and useless with the pure effort to avoid hearing Jeremy laugh at him.

Instead, he turned back to the locker, finished wiping away the mess.

"I'll look for you later," He finally choked out, throat itching with the desire to scratch out his own vocal cords, to avoid another mishap like this. "We can trade and write whatever."

"Okay."

"Yeah."

"See you around, Emily. Have a good summer, okay?"

Emily watched Jeremy walk away.

And then had to take himself to the bathroom.

The girl's bathroom.

To let out his tears before first period.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to post a day early. I'm not sure if I'm going to change my posting schedule to Wednesdays instead of Thursdays. At any rate, this was the next chapter, and the first chapter from the beginning of the timeline. From here on out, events are going to be chronological.


	3. Chapter 3

"Don't let her in here."

Emily stood outside the locker room, and considered the upcoming event. Usually the cheerleaders headed the assemblies, and he'd always figured the end of school show would be more of the same. Another cheer squad pyramid, another ambush of jocks and rah-rah-rahs.

But the gymnastics team had been asked to put together a performance instead. And Emily had been practicing so thoroughly, so precisely, that he couldn't contain his excitement. He’d flipped for his cats, sashayed and pivoted and nailed every cue, to the sounds of their meows that he decided to interpret as enthusiasm. He couldn’t wait, and signed a truce with his suicidal thoughts if only for this afternoon.

Even as he started to step into the locker room, only for Chloe to move directly in front of him. She crossed her arms, glaring.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To change."

"To change," Chloe repeated in a higher pitch, mocking. For a moment, Emily shrank in on himself. There was something demoralizing about having his voice picked out as so feminine.

Or maybe he was extra sensitive about his words given his speech impediment. But he'd carefully chosen a response that wouldn't require him to use any 's' sounds. That couldn't be it.

"We don't want you in here, Goranski." She lisped the 's' in his surname, sticking her tongue out far enough for him to see it in the process. There it was, that twinge of self-loathing, back home again. He shrank further, his mother's shoes sinking like quicksand into the flooring. How would he be able to get his ankles loose from such a trap?

"Yeah," A second voice chimed in. He expected Brooke, but instead looked at one of the upperclassman gymnasts. Her form was always powerful, concise, even if it lacked any flair or personality.

Maybe he should say that. Insult her lack of originality. The words clung inside his throat, ready to explode forth.

He swallowed instead. Insults would require more ‘s’s than he was capable of butchering.

"We know you like to look at us, freak. We don't need a predator in here."

"I need my-"

Chloe, whose arms had been folded behind her back, drew her hand back, a wad of cloth flinging into Emily's chest. The fabric was wet, and smelled vaguely of urine.

"We made sure to clean it off for you," Chloe sneered. "Since you clearly can’t afford to do laundry."

Emily wondered what they'd done, if they'd thrown it into the toilet or if they'd directly relieved themselves upon it. Something about the visual was so absurd that it bolstered his mood. Coach usually had extra uniforms, he'd simply ask for another, and change in the handicapped bathroom. And then he'd perform so well that-

"Ah, Goranski."

Coach's hand was warm and paternal and Emily's chest swelled, though she wasn't sure if it were a crush or a strong desire to impress. The girls briefly glanced at the coach, as though waiting to be reprimanded for words overheard, but he steered Emily away, walking casually towards his office instead.

Impressing him wasn’t in the cards today, as it turned out. She watched the way his nose creased, the smell of his leotard (still clutched, despite being soaked and filthy, in his arms) clearly striking him, though social grace prevented him from stating anything untowards. "You've been working really hard these last few days."

"Yes, sir." He hated to have to use an 's', but politeness trumped impediment etiquette.

"Maybe this is more than you're ready for, don't you think?"

"I-"

"We just...we have so many girls on the team, you understand? And, well, you're not dressed yet, so it seems unnecessary to make you suit up, don't you think?"

Emily stared, watched as he continued to plow through his speech. He hardly gave him a chance to answer, even if he wanted to, even if he was able to.

"Next year, next year for sure. You're getting so good, but I need my all stars out there today."

"Is Michael performing?"

Emily watched as color spotted coach's face, as the veins in his neck tensed. "Yes," He finally said. "Mike has to perform. He's the only boy on the team. If he doesn't, with my luck, we'll have the ACLU breathing down my...yes. Emily, listen, this isn't anything against you. Next year, I promise-"

"Okay." Emily wasn't sure whether he was hurt that Michael still had a place to perform today, when Emily was certainly beyond him in terms of experience and hours clocked in, or if he was pleased just to be able to watch him.

He'd get his answer later, as awkward talks with the coach shifted into waiting to watch the team perform without him. Because just being around the competition was enough to bolster Emily's mood. Sure, sitting in the bleachers wasn't ideal (and even worse because Jake, as a member of the football team, who had their own speech and awards to receive, wasn't beside him). But he found himself on his feet more often than not, hands stinging with how hard he was clapping.

They were good. They were really good. All stars! He could see coach's point now. Why put a dirty pile of confused ideals forward, when there were so many beautiful girls who could perform the routine and do so with hair ribbons glistening?

And then Michael made an entrance.

The audience from the rest of the crowd notably tapered out, though Emily did hear Jeremy cry out Michael's name in unbridled excitement. He smiled faintly, though his ability to hear anything beyond Michael's floor show music soon became a futility.

The thing about Michael was he'd probably have been a decent gymnast if he'd been doing it longer, but this was clearly his first year, and his mediocrity (at least in terms of landings) showed. He could do one hell of a split though, and his rhythm left Emily gasping for breath that he hadn't realized he was holding.

Michael missed a cue for a flip, but improvised so sweetly with a cartwheel that Emily's heart nearly collapsed onto itself with its own swollen weight. He laughed, actually laughed, during the middle of his own routine, offering a shrug towards the audience, before launching into a new move.

Emily sighed, cupping cheek in hand, elbow pressed against his knee. He didn't care what the reasons were, but was Emily ever happy that coach hadn't cut him from today's performance. Watching Michael glisten across the gym floor could do nothing but lift his spirits.

He was beautiful. Beautiful and soft and free, and the way he smiled, even as a junior shouted out "faggot" in a way that cut through even Emily's fog of concentration, was so confusingly foreign as to be intoxicating.

To be so free in existence, to not walk onto the stage with head bowed, mousy and unsteady. That was the way Michael entered every room, as though his existence was a right that he would cherish.

Emily wished he had that same confidence. 

Or maybe he wished he had Michael's height.

Or proportions.

Or hand. Firmly locked within his own.

And suddenly the idea that anyone could think Emily was a dyke was laughable at best. Having such a crush on his fellow gymnast might not have been ideal, but it made Emily feel so warm and happy, even in the cold solitude of the bleachers, that he simply could not give a fuck.

And certainly he knew he had no chance, though they were certainly friendly in practice, two losers in a sea of batons and hair ribbons, but it was nice to have something to add to his list of thoughts beyond suicidal ideation and pronoun practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I enjoy: Pre-squip gymnast Rich  
> Things I equally enjoy: Chubby gymnast Michael  
> Things I also also enjoy: Rich pining after Michael desperately
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this! So much for my posting schedule though, right? Whatever.


	4. Chapter 4

Emily's fingers scraped against the envelope tucked into the very bottom of his locker, and his heart clenched. 

It didn’t seem to take much today, to burn into his chest and leave him hollowed.

It wasn't so much that he'd forgotten that he'd kept it there--you don't store $600 in your locker and simply forget it exists--but rather than he'd forgotten how it felt. Emotionally, of course, the weight of having so much money to his name, when he’d never had anything of his own.

But physically too. The papery corners worn down into a familiar fuzz, the envelope grazing over the tiny indents of his fingerprint, made his heart jump into his throat. Desperately, he swallowed it back down into place in his chest.

Six hundred dollars, he told himself, a head dizzying sense of wonder and possibilities. A little over that, in fact, given the last few babysitting jobs he'd managed to procure. $627.52. He was well aware of every penny, kept in his locker because, even with the turmoil of school, it was still safer than anywhere he could have chosen at home.

He could have left it with Jake, but Jake had so much, surely $627.52 would do little but make him pity Emily for his excitement.

So here it sat instead. Tucked into his locker, on the last day of school, after failing to perform in the assembly. That point was a negative, a dark blip, but seeing Michael had been a positive.

He wasn't sure how to feel about overhearing the talk outside the locker room, though. Whether to categorize it as a plus or a minus. But it was important to figure it out, to conceptualize every moment into a points system, a tally of reasons to live and reasons to die.

For that conversation, they hadn't acknowledged, or perhaps hadn't noticed him, as he clutched his backpack and inched in nearer and nearer. Chloe, and in fact none of the underclassmen girls, wasn't part of this particular foray. Instead, Britney and Dominique, pretty and tall and bitter, chattered in hushed voices, while a few stragglers clung to the edges of the conversation.

"-and it's some, like, Japanese shit, I guess."

"At Payless."

"Right. Rack's selling it."

"Which Payless?" One of the other girls had squawked.

Emily had leaned down to tie his shoe, although doing so required purposefully undoing it first.

"The one at the Menlo Park mall. Look, I'm telling you, my sister took this shit," Dominique had nodded, glancing around. "You know. Angie, not Becca. When she was still trying to off herself. And she's a motivational speaker now."

"Holy shit."

"Holy shit is right. Can you imagine? Going from slitting your wrists one day, to making bank telling people all the reasons they shouldn't slit their wrists the next?"

"I got mine this morning," Britney had boasted with a flick of ginger hair. "And let's just say, I've never been more 'on'. I mean, you girls saw me out there."

And Britney had been magnificent, Emily couldn’t help but note. Brilliant, charismatic, energetic. Everything a gymnast was supposed to be.

And if there was a drug that could help with that...help with emotions in general...

"Ew, the lesbo is listening to us. Hey! We can see you, bitch!"

The spell had been broken, both at the time, and now, two hours later.

Emily shook his head, back in front of his locker again. There wasn't any reason to think about them. To think about what he'd overheard, or how his chest had ached with the possibilities it implied.

Because it was nothing new. He'd heard of antidepressants before. So what difference was this? 

It sounded different, though. Why else would it be sold in a shoe store without any sort of doctor reference or- no, he was making a lot of assumptions, from one snippet of conversation, wasn't he?

Assumptions were sometimes the only connection Emily had to the outside world.

Emily pulled his envelope from the locker, stuffing it into his pocket, beside the still unopened, uneaten can of tuna fish (he'd forgotten a can opener at home, and instead had stolen fries from Jake's plate while Jake pretended not to notice--after telling Jake, repeatedly, that he wasn't hungry). How did he run the calculations again?

His fingers curled around his yearbook in one hand, backpack in the other. Jeremy had kept to his word and signed his yearbook, as had Jake, which meant he'd tipped over two signatures. A nod in the direction of survival, no suicide today.

But Jake was still leaving. Emily bit the inside of his cheek.

Then maybe not suicide. He brushed his hand over the pocket holding his envelope, the money promising some sort of salvation and freedom. Someway out of this town and out of his mind.

Like he wasn’t already completely out of his mind already. He’d played with male pronouns all day in his busted brain, while wearing a dress. If that wasn’t the sign of a crazy person-

"Yo, Millie!" Emily glanced towards the exit.

Jake possessed the sort of casual good looks that should have left Emily's chest pounding and face flushed, but instead of lust, he felt such a profound warmth and pride that he couldn't resist the smile that overtook his face. Jake turned towards his friends, a word of departure, before openly approaching the school loser, the freaky dyke who did backflips and read the same worn out Ray Bradbury collection almost every day in study hall.

"You going home?"

"Probably," Emily shrugged. "You heading to the airport?"

"Yeah." Jake's dimples dug into his cheek, as he shifted back and forth on too long legs. "International flights are such a bitch, dude. I'm going to be so cramped up."

"I don't need to hear it, first class." Emily should have been more mindful of his 's' sounds around Jake, but when you'd known a man since age five, it was hard to bring yourself to care. He knew every lisp and awkward overindulgence. Why try to deny him now?

Besides, if Emily killed himself or ran away, these might be the last memories Jake had of him. Why taint them with insincerity?

Or maybe there was another solution, somewhere in the middle? Somewhere between suicide and escape. Something designed overseas and sold alongside pumps and sandals.

"I might be getting some new shoes, actually. Do you think you can come with me to the mall before you go?" They could walk together, and Emily could go over everything he'd overheard, and Jake could tell him it was a bad idea, some speech comparing them to performance enhancers, untested steroids for his brain, and that he needed to make healthier, more reasonable choices, or see a doctor if he really was feeling so low.

"I can't." Jake sighed softly. "I'm already pushing it now. But you should totally get some new kicks, dude."

Dude. The word was a unisex honorific from Jake, but the masculine implications settled pleasantly in Emily's skin.

Even with the raw knot of disappointment that chased it

"That's cool," He said, shrugging so harshly he was certain it would throw his shoulders from their sockets. "Have a good flight though, seriously. Maybe you'll see a dolphin or something."

"What? Like, from the plane?"

"You never know, dude."

"Going hundreds of miles per hour, a mile or two in the air?"

"It could be a really big, fast dolphin."

"If only." Jake sighed happily. "I love fish."

"Mammals, dude."

"I love mammal fish."

Emily laughed. The feeling of joy, fleeting and warm, clawed sharply at his marrow.

He wanted to bottle it. Sip it. Keep it without needing to depend so heavily on Jake. Was it really so wrong? To want to be happy? Other people seemed happy--Jake seemed happy, some of the cheerleaders who doted on him seemed happy. Michael seemed happy.

Britney seemed happy, and she'd needed a chemical substitute herself.

It could hardly be a prank, if they hadn't noticed him listening, right?

Emily braced himself, even as the joy of laughter with Jake hadn't quite faded. Running away would only change the scenery, it wouldn't erase the dark pit that was the entirety of Emily's personality.

He'd do whatever it took, if it meant replacing all his broken bits with something brighter and lighter. To not have to struggle through every step day by day, that was a joy he could only just begin to contemplate being possible.

"Just wait," Emily said brightly.

"For the fish?"

"No. For the end of summer. When you come back, things are going to be different. You're going to be meeting a whole new Millie."

Jake laughed softly. "I like the old Millie, though."

It was a sweet sentiment.

But wholly useless for his needs.


	5. Chapter 5

The town grew staler and more dirty the further away from school that Emily rode. It was as though the epicenter of the town had inherited all the colors, and the further away he traveled, the less effort had been put into animating everything.

It could have been worse, he thought, as he passed the nearest Wawa and considered the weight of the envelope of money in his pocket. It could have had more crime, or a higher homeless population, or the sorts of drugs that made naked people bite the faces off of Floridians.

No, instead, this was the sort of town that created drugs that could make you happy. And who didn't like to be happy?

Emily wasn't sure. Surely somebody fit that description. But Emily didn't want to be the one to volunteer. He wanted to take his medicine and embrace a hormonal shift, whatever direction that might be.

It was just like the books he liked to read, the science fiction stories of wonderdrugs and paradigm shifts. Galaxies far far away and spaceships where food was always plentiful--and sometimes in pill form. This was the future now.

He wouldn't think about the second act shift, where said innovations were exposed for the dangers they were. Because this wasn't a book, was it? This was his life. Real life didn’t necessarily follow rabbit hole conspiracy theories of pain and devastation. Sometimes, he argued with his cynical mind, a horse wasn’t a trojan horse. Sometimes good things were just good.

Surely that had to be true of something, of anything, in Emily’s life. Why not this?

And if this change fit the bill, could be encapsulated with $600 or less, then Emily would jump through whatever hoops necessary to make it happen. If it meant opening Pandora’s box, then say hello, world, because Emily wouldn’t even try to shut it again.

The bike ride wound its way over the south hills, the trees which surrounded them looming overhead in judgement and condemnation. Emily considered steering into traffic, or maybe steering towards the interstate, but instead turned left, and pulled up to the mall. He stared up at the half-abandoned buildings, stores which had been closed down during the recession and had yet to rebuild.

They still had a Payless and a three screen movie theatre and a JC Penneys and two different pretzel places, though. It wasn't all so bad. Emily liked pretzels. He'd used to get them with his mother, before...

Before. Just before.

As he entered the mall, he passed Chris, from biology, and tried to call out a greeting. A show of camaraderie in the first moments of summer, a half wave and smile. Chris’s eyes briefly moved over Emily, before he pulled out his phone, attention fixed on screen without the barest hint of offering a hello.

Emily turned his feet to the ground, the burned edges of his shoelaces. His toes hurt, cramped as they were. Maybe when he bought this magic pill, fixed his mood, he could go ahead and buy a new pair of shoes too. Something without a ghost of what had once been pleasant memories and maternal affection.

Maybe if his mom had taken the right pills, had overheard the right conversations, she'd be taking Emily to Payless right now herself.

Or maybe it wouldn't be necessary, and he'd be so overcome with joy that the idea of adding anymore would be overwhelming. Because there had to be a threshold, where even happiness was too much.

Was Jake at the airport already? He thought about him, boxed up thousands of feet in the air, probably sipping champagne because that smile was so charming that surely no one could consider telling him no just because he was underage. Emily couldn't picture being so charismatic, didn’t know what it took to get people to do as you wanted, but maybe it had something to do with happiness. Maybe it was something to do with this pill, something unlockable with the right drugs, and worst case scenario he could always just kill himself if it didn't work.

Either way, he wasn't spending another miserable summer as Emily Goranski.

The interior of Payless Shoes was frigid and smelled of eucalyptus. Emily cradled his arms around himself, dress shimmying against his kneecaps uncomfortably. The price tags proclaimed good deals, and though he had more money than he'd ever had in his life, he couldn't help but think how little he could actually afford in here.

Life was a balancing act of deals he couldn't afford.

But if this pill was anything like what Britney had talked up, he absolutely couldn't stand by this time.

The cashier didn't offer any assistance, at least not initially, a cold sneer tugging his lips. Emily's eyes briefly touched on the store policy sign, no shoes no shirt no service, and no loitering. His fingers clutched tightly to his own arms, as though to control his own cells and neurons. 

"I, um." How did you go about asking for drugs? "I heard about, um, this Japanese-" An unavoidable S sound. Except it wasn’t unavoidable. He could have said “I heard about this pill from Japan” and it would have carried the same weight with far less shame.

Thankfully, faux pas aside, this was the last he'd need to squeak out. "$500, upfront, and we're responsible for none of the side effects."

He should have asked what the side effects were.

He should have negotiated for less.

He should have reconsidered the logic of riding straight to the source of the story that he hadn't been invited to overhear in the first place, maybe considered counseling or psychological assistance.

Counseling would cost more than $500, and would require more parental intervention than Emily would be able to invest in. And doctors would surely pry too deeply into his suicidal thoughts, the coping mechanisms that could surely result in involuntary hospitalization. Emily maybe couldn't research his gender confusion, but he knew enough about America's relationship with mental health to know that talking about wanting to die was infinitely worse than the feeling itself.

So he didn't question the name of the pill or the side effects or the methodology. No, what Emily did was count out $500 in fives and tens and lonely ones, earned through collecting cans and babysitting children from worse homes than his own, money that had been meant to build a new life.

Here’s to seeing if money really could buy happiness.

"Take it with mountain dew."

He should have questioned that too. But he nodded instead. Like it was knowledge he'd already possessed, and was merely politely thanking this cashier for the courtesy of reapplying the reminder to him.

The pill was grey and oblong and contained no labels or discernible markings. Emily rolled it around his palm, noting the lack of weight or warmth. It seemed wholly ordinary, maybe a bit undersized.

"Just the one?"

"Obviously," The cashier stated with a slight raise of pierced eyebrow. "You do know what you have there, right?"

"Obviously," Emily repeated the word and tone, if not the exact pronunciation.

No questions needed. If the side effects were terrible, he'd just drown himself, or bash in his head with a rock, or piss off Cody, or throw himself to his neighbor's dogs.

Or follow in his mother's footsteps.

His body felt cold as he coiled his fingers around his pill. Time to embrace this destiny, no matter how long or short his time left may be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick thank you to everyone who's reading and following along. Very much appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings here for implied CSA and repressed memories, although it is very brief.  
> I also wanted to note that this fic was written before the NYC production, wherein Rich's squip is revealed to be female. Either this is within a different canon, or it's just an AU, or I guess you can think of it however you'd like to think of it. I'm not sure.  
> As for the squip sequence, I have a feeling that a lot of the early moments with a squip (the calibration process) are a prewritten script process, hence why it's identical in verbage to when Jeremy was squipped in play.   
> I really hope you guys enjoy this. Thank you for sticking with me this far, it means the world to me.

The mismatched chair Emily had dragged from the kitchen to serve as makeshift blockade cracked and groaned as Cody repeatedly banged his fist against the door.

"You fucking cunt!" Cody's voice roared, as Emily sat with his legs crossed against the floor. His back pressed against the back wall, between the pair of twin beds, facing the door. He watched the movement of the wood, swearing he could see chips fly away in Cody's infinite rage and punishment.

"Fuck off!" Emily retorted, fingers shaking around lukewarm can of mountain dew. He'd found the 12 pack underneath Cody's bed, as expected. Even in his mid-twenties, his brother still hadn't learned the meaning of sharing, stashing his own supply of food and drink in the room they'd shared since his latest breakup and return home.

Not like their father, or Emily, could possibly benefit from any sort of nourishment. Of course, if Emily was honest, he’d have preferred to go without if it meant his father would too. Let the man shrivel and blow away, a gust of dust with no eulogy or memorium.

"Fuck off?" Cody repeated, with a low laugh. "Oh, you're going to pay, talking to me like that. Open the fucking door, Emily!"

"No thanks."

"No thanks," Cody mocked, a lilt and a lisp in his words, exaggerated enough to hear spittle leave his mouth. A brief pause in the knocking was enough for Emily to pull the pill out of his pocket.

He still had a little over a hundred dollars left, but the money was the least of his concerns. What would happen, once he popped this into his mouth? Was it best to take with food?

Probably not. The cashier had taken pains to inform Emily what to drink. If food had been important, surely he would have mentioned as much. 

Of course, Emily had claimed to already know everything about the pill. Had that been a mistake? Surely it had, but how much of a mistake?

There really was only one way to find out.

Mint flooded Emily's mouth the moment the pill touched his tongue. It was a putrid combo of flavors, once the citrus familiarity of Mountain Dew chased it. Emily grimaced, as the knocking grew more pronounced again.

"This whore won't let me in the room, dad!" Cody whined as though he were still a teenager.

And Emily's head spun as though he'd chased with whiskey instead of soda. His throat quivered, each movement of the pill down his gullet leaving him raw, hyper-focused.

How would he know once it took effect?

Dimly, he felt his legs tingle. Was that medicine or awkward seating position? His fingers followed the process, a low ache that began to burn up the veins of his arms.

These sorts of sensations could have been placebo, though.

**Calibration in process.**

The words chased an electrical rush, the sudden pain so absolute and true that, rather than alarm, Emily could do little but gasp in something akin to delight. It was working.

It was working, and it had a voice. A voice with a dull mechanical echo behind it.

So was the pill supposed to cause hallucinations? Auditory sensations? A conscience, to speak pleasantries and wisdom and just the right nudge to bring about peace?

**Please excuse some mild discomfort.**

Emily groaned quietly, body jerking backward with a rupturing pain. His stomach seemed to split open starting athis navel. He reached down, grasped at skin that remained whole, but surely such pain had to be a result of something tearing. So where was he cut?

His head his head his head it was all in his head it was starting in his head his HEAD THE PAIN WAS INSURMOUNTABLE HE NEEDED TO DIE HE NEEDED TO DIE HE NEEDED TO

**Calibration complete, access procedure initiated.**

The electrical desperation and near-vivisection levels of agony subsided, if only for long enough for Emily to breathe.

Access procedure. The terms felt straight out of a book, though whether it was a scientific dystopia or utopia, he hardly had a chance to define.

Because the voice was cooing again.

**Discomfort level may-**

"Open the fucking door!"

Emily bit his lip until blood burst from his own flesh, from the pure need to keep himself silent. He curled in on himself, clutching knees to chest as hot tears stung in his eyes. Every terrible memory tore lose from his brain. The funeral for his mother. Trailer on fire. Laughter from Chloe as he humiliated himself in front of a crush. The days upon days of hunger and starvation on lonely summer afternoons. Cody sneaking into his room, Cody laying in his bed, why was Cody getting under his covers what was he seeing what was happening this wasn't a real memory this wasn't something he knew it hurt it hurt it hurt IT HURT

**Accessing: neuro memory, accessing: muscle memory, access procedure: compete.**

_Please just end it please just end it please let me die please let me die let me DIE LET ME DIE LET ME DIE_

"No can do, kiddo."

The voice came so soothing and human that Emily had to look up from his fetal position. The pain shivered and bled free from his body, as his vision shimmered, vague lights and shapes beginning to formulate and coagulate before him.

"Emily Goranski, welcome to the best decision you've ever made in your miserable life." The pieces of light began to magnetize together, as the silhouette of a man began to build itself from the feet up before him.

"Welcome to your Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor." Those specific words sounded preprogrammed, though there was a flourish to the way he spoke them. There was a pause, as a smile finally built itself onto the still-adjusting features of the hallucination's face, nothing but blank skin and a toothy smile as lights continued to pulse and realign their details. 

"Your Squip."

**END PART ONE**


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so nervous about posting this next part of the story, but I'll just close my eyes and hit post. I hope you enjoy!

PART TWO

Chapter 7

"Let me get a good look at you."

It was an interesting choice of words, Emily couldn't help but note. For him to say he wanted to look at him, when Emily wanted to take in this...this...

Squip. That was the word. Super Quantum Unit Intel...right, the words themselves weren’t so important. So it wasn’t drugs. It was a computer. A tiny computer that you eat. It wasn’t the strangest concept Emily had ever encountered in fiction, but it was a bit of a trip to consider in real life.

A Squip.

"MOSES, if you want to be specific. You humans like anthropomorphizing, right? I'm a Multidimensional Organic Symbiosis Extension System. Squip upgrade 3.7." He paused, his eyes finally snapping into crystalline focus. They were a brilliant aquamarine. Emily bit the inside of his cheek, and realized only then that he hadn't spoken any of his intentions or questions aloud yet.

"Initialisms are a drag, though. You can just call me Mo. Or Squip or, really, I'm here for you. You can call me whatever you see fit."

"Mo is fine," Emily managed meekly. Squip wouldn't work. With the-

"S sound?" Mo concluded for him. "That's right, you have a speech impediment. That's an easy fix, I can manually adjust your tongue position when you talk."

"Because you're inside me," Emily said slowly. The sensation trickled, from tip of tongue, down into his jawbone, as he realized the effect had already taken place seamlessly. This squip, this tiny pill, was already operating more impressively than several years of in-school speech therapy had ever managed.

"And seeing you...you're just a visual hallucination of a, um, a manifestation in my head."

Moses tilted his head, which by now had shoulder length black hair. It swept over toned shoulder, a fitted t-shirt clinging to biceps and abs that Emily could just faintly make the details out of. "Those are some $10 words there."

"I read a lot."

"I can see that. Genre savvy, aren't you?" Moses--this strange quantum computer (the full weight of acronyms and science jargon finally began to impress itself upon Emily)--sounded impressed.

Emily had never impressed anybody before.

"A little. So I'm guessing that out in public, you'll just interact with my thoughts, instead of directly through the words from my mouth?"

"You know, I'm supposed to be explaining all of this to you."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. There's your first bit of advice. Don't apologize. You're not sorry, you deserve to take up weight and substance in this world."

Emily gawked at him. "Th...thank you."

"Now then. About that assessment." Mo's expression, sharp masculine lines and rugged jawline, fit into hyper-focus as he looked over Emily's form. A brief tingling pulsed through Emily's mind, as the super computer slowly spoke in more of a drone than actual conversational humanity.

"Emily Goranski, 14 years old, heading into Sophomore year at Middle Borough High School. One friend, dead mother-" The frankness made Emily wince. "-Gymnast...I can work with that," Mo's voice briefly brightened. "A flexible girl, that's an easy thing to work with. With that body, and some better clothes, we can make you the belle of the..huh."

Emily could feel the questions bubble, but what was the point of speaking them, when Mo could simply intrude upon his thoughts himself, process the mess of intentions in his curiosity and worry.

"FTM transsexual. Excuse me," Mo laughed, shaking his head. "Transgender. Some of my word banks are a little outdated."

Hearing the words hang between them, Emily shook, still seated on the floor.

Mo's eyes bore into his own. A brief smile touching on cyber lips.

"I can work with that too."

The chair latching the door shut fractured and popped and burst, with the sudden force of the room being invaded by Cody.

Cody, all 6'7" and beer gut on otherwise toned body, broke through Mo's hallucinatory form. Mo's body splintered into fragments of code and light, and Emily nearly screamed

"Still here," The voice reassured internally. "Stay low. When I tell you to move, you do exactly as I say, alright?"

Alright.

Of course.

Anything.

"You stupid whore. What the fuck are you doing?" Cody's eyes shifted to the spilled can of mountain dew beside Emily's body. His eyes bulged. "Drinking my shit too? You cunt, I should fucking kill you!"

"Dive between his legs and get outside. He's too drunk to chase you."

Cody's hands strained for Emily's hair, as he instead did exactly as instructed. He dove between his legs, rolling against the floor for a haltering moment, before he heard Mo instruct him to get up. The movements were so smooth he could hardly believe they were assigned to his own body, but he did as instructed, brought himself rightside up. Gymnastics proved useful for once in his frantic life, something beyond a diversion of mind and spirit. Beyond looking at eye candy.

He bolted, footstep after echoing footstep, his father shouting obscenities after him, several cats scattering out of his way, as he finally burst into the summer heat outside half-fallen trailer park screen door.

Mo's laughter radiated after him as he made it across several lots, finally collapsing onto his back into the grass of an as of yet unrented spot. He panted for breath, as Mo rematerialized, tight jeans and t-shirt and hair now bound into a messy ponytail.

"You are one hell of a boy, Em," He said with a chuckle.

Emily couldn't fight the grin on his face. A boy. A real honest and true boy.

"We're going to need to come up with a new name for you, though. That's our next step."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend made an amazing animatic of Moses that you can find here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijp2Y7sFwuE for those curious about his look and style. Absolutely gorgeous work, highly recommend you check it out.

They poured over baby name books over the next week, the two of them sprawled outside. Emily was certain people passing must think him an expectant teen mother. 

It certainly ran in the family, but Emily hated to think of the thoughts, the assessment. The ease people could look at a lower society person and assume the absolute lowest of them.

"Fuck them," Mo said dryly. "Let them think whatever they want. Men don't dignify inferior beings with worrying about what they might think."

Mo was full of that, profanity and wisdom, all the right elements of what it meant to be a man. 

And it was Mo, with his sun kissed skin and stubble, who eventually settled on the perfect name.

"Richard?" Emily repeated in disbelief. 

"Yes."

"As in the long form of Dick?"

"Yes." There was a brief silence, a grin on Mo's face, before he added, "But you'll go by Rich."

"Which I'm not."

"Hm?"

"Rich." He gestured around the dandelion patterned fields of the empty trailer lots. "I'm pretty fucking poor, dude."

The squip was always quick to laugh at Emily's jokes, to humor him with a smile and a nod of appreciation. "I understand that," he assured him. "but it's a very strong, masculine name. There's plenty of variation. And the irony is good. People make minute assumptions every day. You hear someone is named Rich, and you jump to the obvious--dick and riches. Of which, I'm sorry to say, at this time you have neither. But we will fix that, you and I, don't you worry."

"I don't see how," he said, while secretly--or not so secretly, with his thoughts being permanently out in the open--clinging to the possibilities his squip promised. 

"There are surgeries. Prosthetics. But you leave the concerns about that to me. Test it out. Introduce yourself."

"What?"

"Introduce yourself to me."

It seemed silly, but he saw no need to doubt Mo's instructions. "Hi, I'm Em-"

"No. As Rich."

It was silly. It was so silly. There was no sense in...

Well, he may as well try it. It wasn’t like he held any fondness towards the name he’d received on his birth certificate, something to honor an aunt he barely remembered, certainly not well enough to cherish at the expense of his comfort.

"Hi," He smiled. "My name is Rich Goranski, and..."

His throat swelled, preventing any more words from escaping his mouth. He blinked, mouth gaping open in shock as he regarded his smirking computer friend.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

All Emily...all Rich could do was nod.

"I know what you need. You're doing so good so far, but we need to go deeper. Trust me, you're going to enter school after the end of this summer as a whole new man."

The name and the lack of lisp really was just the beginning. But the transformation felt so natural that Rich forgot words like 'no' or 'maybe not' or 'why'. The idea of questioning the expert not only didn't occur to him, but seemed outright rude. Moses was working so hard to transform him, and asked so little in return. Why shouldn't Rich jump or obey whenever the demands came?

Even as they went through his room, and began to destroy all of Rich's books.

"I know, I know this is hard," Mo said soothingly. "I know you've invested a lot into these. But there's a certain type of man who attracts all the attention and respect that you crave, and that man doesn't sit in a dark room reading Star Trek novelizations."

"They're pretty lousy anyway," Rich lied. Because he wanted to savor how his 's's sounded without his lisp, and because he needed to lie to comfort himself, and to appease Mo.

Mo smiled knowingly, a non-existent hand pressing against Rich's shoulder. The weight of it felt so real that it was easy to forget that this conversation was taking place all in his head.

And made it all the easier to box up the last of his books. 

They'd burn them together, behind the communal dumpsters. Rich watched the flames lick at the pages he'd spent so much of his life burying himself within, and he smiled, not at the allure of killing Emily, but at the phoenix of his new life bubbling from the ashes.


	9. Chapter 9

Compared to burning the books, the athleticism came easier.

"We need to transform your gymnast body into hard muscle." Mo walked around Rich, as Rich used the local park's monkey bars to do chin ups. Each pull of his own body weight burned, but the adrenaline only fueled him on further.

"You're short," Mo pointed out. "Even for a girl. And that's okay, some guys are short. But sometimes a little overcompensation can go a long way. We need people to look at you and think you're bigger than what you really are. And that comes out a lot in talk and walk, which we'll work on, but it also comes across in your body shape. I'll adjust your hormones from within you as best I can, but you also need to put in the work."

"Makes sense," Rich said agreeably. "i'm not afraid of a little sweat."

"i know you're not," Mo watched as Rich brought himself over the bars with a pant again. "And you've been doing so good. I just want you to know what the goal is here. You know I'm not doing anything just for kicks, right?"

"I know."

"I'm here to help you."

"I know," Rich laughed. "And you're doing a hell of a job. I'm feeling jacked, bro."

"Bro," Mo repeated, then offered a small nod of approval. "i like that. We're keeping that."

Mo could have told him to say anything and Rich would have repeated it. It just felt so good to be able to talk without second guessing every sound and word. Maybe with a supercomputer designed to better himself, he’d expected more insults. More negative affirmations.

But Mo spoke to him as an equal. Built him up as though Rich deserved it. 

It was so foreign that sometimes Rich had to cry himself to sleep out of sheer joy, only for Mo to softly insist he wipe his eyes, and get the rest he needed.

Their conversations were so good that sometimes they skipped the improvement sessions altogether, simply laid in the grass and spoke about the world around them. Celebrity gossip or scientific discoveries or Rich’s plans for the future.

Of course, talk outloud had to taper off once Mo managed to get Rich into a gym. The last $100 from the babysitting fund was traded over for a gym and tanning membership. “This is good,” Mo cooed within his brain, as Rich hesitated at the door frame. “You can observe men in their natural habitat. We can figure out the kind of man you’re going to become.”

_I don’t like this_ , Rich thought, as he took a few steps towards the bench. _Aren’t I supposed to have someone to spot me?_

“What am I, chopped liver?”

_You don’t exactly have a body, Mo._

“Yes I do.” Rich tried not to move his eyes too notably, as the vision of his squip moved before him. “I have your body. If you start to falter, I can reinforce you. Make sure you catch it. Trust me, this is safer than having to depend on another frail human. Now, while you’re moving, let’s practice that walk we tried yesterday.”

They’d watched old movies, classic cinema. Marlon Brando and James Dean and Rock Hudson and “Aren’t these guys all gay?” Rich had pointed out.

“Maybe but you can’t deny that style.”

And he was right. There was something to be said about the classic way men used to carry themselves.

So Rich emulated it. Mo told him to pretend he had a big, swinging cock between his legs. “Ladies move with their hips, men move with their dicks. Think of it as a big arrow guiding you forward.”

Rich tried to do exactly that.

“That’s more of a torpedo. Here, like me.”

And so he’d copied him, like a baby deer learning his footing in the winter snow, stepping where his mama stepped. Or like a beauty queen.

Or like something actually masculine and badass. 

“Like lions,” Rich had finally said, only for Mo to laugh.

“Lionesses are actually more powerful than male lions, did you know that? Or rather, they do all the hunting.”

“...right, well, I was thinking of, you know, Simba.”

“Am I your Mufasa, Richard?”

“Maybe?”

Rich was beginning to grow addicted to his squip’s laugh.

Regardless, the walk followed the pair of them into the gym, and Rich found himself puffing out his chest, staggering his steps as indicated. There was something exhilarating about moving like a man, even if he was doing so while wearing an old outfit of Cody’s. At least it was clean, though he couldn’t stop the skin crawling feeling of having to borrow something from his brother.

“Good point,” Mo said. “We need to get you a new wardrobe.”

It felt like something out of a montage. Shopping sprees required money, though, and so Mo began to instruct Rich in all the best places to pick up loot. The fastest things to shoplift, that would carry the biggest reward with the lowest risk at pawn shops. Rich’s fingers grew quick, his eye fluttering for detail of managerial oversight, and the underside of his mattress grew swollen with dollar bills.

“Better than babysitting for the Colins, isn’t it?”

And it certainly was.

But then, everything with Mo was better than anything Rich had ever experienced. The shopping was done in quick bursts, at first accompanied by lies about shopping for boyfriends, and then dropping the sham completely.

“They probably think I’m a butch lesbian,” Rich said softly, as he held the electric razor the way Mo instructed.

“Who cares what they think?” Mo directed his touch. 

“I mean, me, I guess.”

“Well, stop. You’re going to be so handsome by the beginning of the school year.”

By now the fourth of July had passed, the sweltering heat of the sun baked everywhere, and amplifying the glow Rich had earned through time outdoors and gymnasium tanning beds. 

“You really think so?”

“I know so. Here.” The razor moved as though on its own accord. Rich smiled, relaxing as the squip bodily controlled him, and finished the trimmed haircut. The room still smelled of peroxide and hair dye, the lone red streak over the top of his hair garish and bold.

And Rich didn’t dare say it, but his biceps were looking good. He flexed, watching the way his arms shifted with the movement. A small laugh escaped him. “All this after a month?”

“It’s been nearly two months, to be fair,” His squip pointed out. “But I have something for you. I ordered it while you were sleeping.”

Maybe Rich should have questioned his ability to order anything while he slept, without a physical form of his own. But Rich squirmed with anticipation, allowing Mo to direct him to the closet. Digging through piles of Cody’s filthy socks and briefs, he finally found an amazon package under the laundry.

“How-”

“Open it.” Mo seemed to sparkle with his excitement. “You’re going to love this, Rich, I know you are. Trust me.”

Rich slipped his fingers into the edging of the box, tearing apart the tape. Only to find-

Well…

“What is it?” He picked up the tight, nylon and spandex knitted material. It seemed too small for anything he could wear.

“It’s a binder. For your chest. Go on.”

Rich didn’t bother with any modesty as he slipped off his tank top, only to begin to wriggle into the black compression top instead. Mo reached over, as though to help him, though instead the mirage of his hands smoothed through Rich’s shorn hair.

The binder sucked tightly to Rich’s skin, another layer of flesh. He started to turn towards the mirror.

“Not yet,” Mo insisted. “Put your shirt back on. And look in the box, there’s something else.

Rich raised an eyebrow, but grabbed his tank top. It shimmied over his shirt, a little looser than it had been before, his breasts hugged inward alluringly.

And then his attention turned back to the box.

It looked like a...well, it looked like...jesus, he couldn’t even think it!

“It’s a packer,” Mo breathed, reaching down to grab Rich’s wrist, and direct his hand into the box. Rich grasped the almost gummy silicone, drawing the flesh colored cylinder out. It rested cleanly in his palm, the color eerily identical to his own skin. He looked up, eyes wide.

“It’s a cock.”

“It’s your cock. Or at least, it’s your first cock. And it functions as an STP- so you can stand up and piss.”

“Just like a real guy,” Rich breathed in wonder.

Mo shook his head. “Rich. Stop. You’re already a real guy.”

Rich’s eyes filled with tears. Without thinking, he flung himself towards his squip, arms outreached.

He was stunned by how solid Mo felt within his arms, Rich’s cheek nuzzling against his chest. He felt cool hands press against his back, and felt Mo’s laugh rustle the hair on his head.

It was fake, he knew. It was a matter of perception, a trick of his mind that Mo was able to manipulate. But it felt so good to be touched, to be held, even if he knew he was really only hugging the air, or maybe himself. He didn’t want to dissect the illusion too much, for fear of losing it. He drew back, wiping his tears.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You don’t need to. Go on, put it in.”

Mo had to direct him, help guide Rich’s adjustment with the packer in his boxer-briefs. He pulled his pants back up, and finally, finally Mo let him look in the mirror.

“Whoa.” They both breathed at once, taking in the full effect of Rich’s appearance in the mirror.

It wasn’t perfect--his face was soft, and he could stand to have some more definition. He lifted his shirt, just enough to take in his stomach.

“I have abs,” He said, seeing his body anew, fresh. 

“I’ve been adjusting your testosterone levels,” Mo said softly. “To help you, in the gym. It should cause your periods to stop too. It’s similar to what you’d experience with...well, with a doctor.”

“But better.” Rich turned around, back towards the mirror. He looked at his squip, his savior, and realized he hadn’t thought about suicide at all since he’d swallowed the pill. “You’re so much better.”

“Well,” Mo smiled. “That’s true. But enough about me. Look at you.”

Rich turned around again, eyed his new physique with fascination and awe.

“I’m going to be the hottest guy in Middle Borough,” He said, feigning a bit of the cockiness, but god it was nice to fantasize.

“You already are.”


	10. Chapter 10

Jake stared at Rich, his mouth slightly ajar. Normally, this was the ending cusp of summer, where Rich sized up how much taller Jake had gotten, how much tanner he'd grown, all the new outfits and culture he'd absorbed. This was usually the Jake Dillinger Show, and Rich was just happy to have ring side seats.

But this time, it was Rich who'd made the biggest strides towards change. Towards becoming something new. The New Adventures of Rich Goranski, guest starring Moses the Incredible.

He didn't feel so new, though Maybe it was because of Mo. He made everything feel so natural, like this transformation had just been a flip of cells, something that had already been inside him. Like one of those pillow pets you turned inside out, exposed what had always been inside. He’d just turned Rich into his true self.

He was really starting to understand that now. The more looks he got as a male around town, the more validated he felt, and the more he realized that this was the reality he'd been meant to occupy. He stood at his door, smiling gapped teeth at Jake, and running fingers through the garish red stripe running through bleached hair.

"So...so Rich, then?" Jake finally said meekly. Explaining hadn't been as difficult or as awkward as Rich had expected--mostly because Mo had supplied most of the words. Having a script to repeat made everything effortless.

"Yeah." He bounced back and forth on his feet, before he felt a low buzz in his lower back. The sensation caused him to drop back down to flat feet, a still demeanor.

"Good," Mo said smoothly, pleasantly. "Don't fidget. It makes people nervous, and it makes you look like a little kid."

_Good to know._

"Rich. Rich Goranski. Okay. I can get behind that, dude." Jake offered a small nod, slow and contemplative. 

"Is it too weird? Are you mad, that I didn't tell you sooner? Because I-"

"Stop babbling. He's not uncomfortable with you. He's uncomfortable with himself. Let him process this," Mo cut Rich's speech off, and rubbed his hand against his back until Rich relaxed once more.

"No, I'm not mad. It's just, I mean, I feel sorta bad, you know? That you thought you had to hide it."

"Nah, I was still figuring my shit out myself."

"I should have known."

"Are you shocked?"

"No. Not really. Just, like I said, sad I guess. Not because of you being...like, you being a dude is cool, dude. I feel bad because...man. That must have been lonely."

Rich shrugged. What use was it to wallow? He'd forgotten about loneliness, ever since Mo had come into his life. It was almost as though he'd been waiting for this, primed with solitude just to fully appreciate the unique energy his squip could provide.

Still- "It's so nice to see you, dude. Did you get some German pussy?"

Jake laughed. "Oh you know--dude!" His eyes widened. "Your lisp."

"Huh?" His heart flopped. Had it come back?

"No," Mo assured him.

"It's totally gone. Holy shit! You must have been seriously practicing."

Did he tell him?

Mo hadn't told him that he needed to hide his squip. And as his best friend, maybe Rich should have shared it then. Spoken about all they'd done together, the work poured into building Rich into the boy he was right now.

But he didn't want to share Mo. He wanted him to be all his, bundled up and kept hidden. He liked that he was just a voice in his head, with a body only he could see, let alone touch. He liked having his guidance and friendship and advice.

"I like you too, Rich. But pay attention to Jake right now. There's too much of a lag if I have to repeat everything."

_Right._

"Something like that," Rich answered cheerfully. "But hey, enough of that. What are you up to tonight?"

It was a line of questioning Mo had suggested. Jake almost always had plans every night of the summer--and certainly at times he'd cancel those plans, in order to spend time with Rich.

That seemed to be the case here.

"Oh, there's a rager down on 9th avenue, but I don't know if I-"

"Tell him you want to go."

RIch had never gone to a party before. Not on his own, and not with Jake. The closest was one birthday bash, back when they'd been 7, and he'd left early to walk back home. It had taken 3 hours to walk from Jake’s house in the hills, to his trailer in the valley, with every retread and backtrack as he’d gotten himself further and further lost.

When he’d finally gotten home, Cody had punched him and called him a pussy and he'd cried more about embarrassing Jake by leaving than for the pain that resonated in his bones from how hard his brother hit him.

This was different, though. Not cake and ice cream, but jello shots and beer pong. Rich shivered, steeling himself. 

And asked, nervously, within his mind:

_You'll be with me, right?_

"Every step of the way."

_Am I going to need to drink?_

"Absolutely not. Not for this first party. It interferes with my connection."

_Okay._

"Dude. We should totally go!" Rich chirped.

"We should?" Jake's mouth fell open again, if only for a moment, before he sputtered, "It's okay, dude, I already planned on having you over to my place instead. Bought root beer float ingredients and everything."

"No way," Rich smiled. "New year, new me!"

"It's not new years. But I guess you have changed a lot."

"Not all that much," He insisted. "I'm just better now." He smirked, giving Jake a shove on the shoulder.

"Yes. Just like that. Assert your dominance, but playfully. Let him know you're his friend, but that you're also strong enough to hold your own."

Jake laughed, giving Rich a small push back. Mo established Rich's feet perfectly, braced him to keep from falling over.

"Well, okay, I'll call for a ride."

"Yeah. Let everyone meet the new Rich Goranski."

"Oh, that's a good angle," Mo chimed in. "New."


	11. Chapter 11

Jake's ride hookup wasn't anyone Rich recognized from school. Surely he would have remembered someone named Brick, after all.

"Brick and Rich. It sorta goes together. You ever go by Rick?"

Rich hesitated. Turned inward.

_Do I?_

"Never." A brief contemplation, and then, "Tell him 'hell no.'"

"Fuck no."

"Even better. Good thinking."

Rich glowed under the praise, as Brick's fingers briefly tensed around the steering wheel. The laughter of Jake, and the other two boys in the car (very drunk and very irrelevant, as Mo had been quick to assess), quickly caused Brick's face to split into a grin.

_This guy has no personality._

"But he has a car. That's better than a personality. Maybe we can learn to hotwire."

_Hey, I'm down. Vroom vroom, motherfucker._

The laugh was low, low enough for Rich to still perfectly hear as one of the unimportant winos slurred a question.

"So where are you from, Rich?"

Rich waited for Jake to out him, to admit that Rich had always gone to Middle Borough. 

He didn't. Eyes bright and questioning as he looked forward at Rich. Rich twisted from the passenger seat up front. Jake’s silence spoke volumes. He’d go along with whatever story Rich built for himself.

So he was stuck with a dilemma.

"No dilemma. Tell them California."

_I clearly have a Jersey accent._

"They're clearly drunk. California. If you go New York, it's going to open some Yankees shit, and we're not in the mood for that."

_Yeah, you're right._

"And it's on the other end of the country. Girls will be intrigued."

_And guys._

"We're not concerning ourselves with guys."

_Okay._

Was it okay though? Rich waited for his squip to enter his thoughts, and reprimand the moment's hesitation.

When it didn't come, he finally remembered his need to speak. "Oh, west coast."

"Cali?"

"Yeah."

"Dope, dude."

"Yeah."

"I bet the girls are really hot there," Drunkard 2 chimed in.

"Shrug and tell him they're okay."

And so Rich did. 

"Tell them your standards are high."

And so Rich did.

"Now tell them a hilarious sex story. Repeat after me."

And so Rich did.

The car pulled into a lot, the party roofless and aimless, a mass of bodies in a McDonald's parking lot. Girls flipped up their tops, and boys snuck cell phone pics of underage nipples and asses. Rich picked out some of the familiar faces--football players who'd catcalled him, or who'd asked him out on dates for a dare, or who'd pinched his ass and said they'd fuck the gay out of him. Boys who Rich had wanted badly to impress, the harder they pushed him.

"We could go prison rules," Mo mused. "Find the biggest guy, and shank him."

_I left my piece at home. Darn it._

"Don't even think 'darn it,'" His squip giggled--an honest to god giggle. It hadn't even been that great a set up. "’Darn it’ isn't even for girls. It's just narmy."

_That's my true form._

"Stop. Think chill thoughts. We need to tap into the right vibe here."

_I left my vibe at home, too._

"Careful with your words, or I'll end up on amazon again for you."

The back of Rich's neck glowed pink, as Brick shoved a beer into his open fist. "Drink up, bruh," He said with a hardy pat on Rich's back. Thankfully, Rich remained on his feet.

"Oh. Okay, you're already in. Then I guess we just mingle. You want to make out?" Mo questioned.

Rich swirled the can around, just to hear the liquid bubble and shake. And he sputtered, nearly choked on air alone.

_With you?!_

There was a buzz, a pop, and then Mo was externalized again. Standing among the party goers as naturally as though he were etched into the art work, or just another scruffy faced teen.

No, he looked older than the teenagers here. Mo was a man.

...Mo was a robot. Or, well, a computer. A simulation. A-

"Do you want to make out with me, Rich?"

Rich stared. His fingers clutched the can, and Mo smiled. He touched Rich's wrist, directed his hand down, placing the beer can on the curb.

"That girl there. Redhead. She's cute, right?"

_I guess._

"Or the brunette?"

_Maybe._

But with a little more enthusiasm that time.

"There we go. Go introduce yourself."

Introducing himself, as it turned out, meant grind dancing and fetching her drinks. Her name was Annabelle, or maybe Marianne, or maybe Jodie. Some sort of name that was girly and hers. 

"Spill your drink down her shirt."

Annabelle or Marianne or maybe Jodie shrieked as cold spiked punch spilled down her white blouse. She squealed and she clung to Rich, as RIch offered the stock apologies Mo fed into his ear.

"It's okay," She panted. "I'll just need to take it off. Before I catch a cold."

It was summer, though. Rich considered saying it, but shut himself down before Mo could even instruct him.

"You're a natural. Take her back to Brick's car."

_Okay._

She fit in the backseat like a china doll, and her legs slotted around Rich's waist naturally.

"We're just going to practice kissing and grinding today, Rich. Follow my pace."

From behind him, Rich felt Mo's hands center against his hips. He gasped, as his lips pressed against Annabelle or Marianne or maybe Jodie's mouth.

The kiss was okay, but Mo's fingers were electric. He pushed him forward, Rich's packer grinding against the girl's crotch through their clothing. Her legs squeezed him.

"That's good. She likes that."

Mo circled Rich's hips, squeezing them reassuringly, as he pressed and pulled and manipulated every movement.

Rich's lips moved on their own accord though. He sucked on her tongue, just to catch her whined sigh within his own mouth.

"Good boy. That's my good, sexy boy. Make her sing for you, Richie. Make her cry."

His hand slipped from Rich's hip, cupping his ass for just a moment. 

And Rich shuddered, soaking his boxers and his packer in absolute aroused need.

Annabelle or Marianne or maybe Jodie gasped Rich's name--how did she remember his name?

"She's never going to forget it. Give her that cock, Rich, give her that hard cock. Make her cum in her skirt."

He bit her lip, as she clawed at his back, as Mo placed both hands on the slope of Rich's ass, guided him by his back pockets.

Every touch was magnified, every smell, every sight. Rich was so wet that he was sure she could feel it.

"She won't care. You're driving her wild."

Parties, Rich decided right then and there, were fucking awesome.


	12. Chapter 12

Brick was so drunk that he could scarcely stay on the road. Rich laughed, bright and airy, as though he was the one intoxicated.

"Next time," Mo said reassuringly. "Next time, I'll let you drink. You'll have to shut me off for it, though."

_Why?_

"I told you. It messes with my settings." Mo sat between Rich and Brick in the front seat, while the 2 drunks and Jake sat in the back. "Did you have fun?" he asked with a smile.

_Yeah._

"Just yeah?"

_Really fun._ Rich sighed dreamily. _Thank you._

"Dude, you and Teena were back here forever," Irrelevant Alkie 1 chimed.

Rich laughed. "Yeah, my cock was legendary in San Diego. Time to spread it to a new coast."

It sounded so stupid.

"Good. They're stupid boys. They'll like it."

The high fives stung at Rich's palm. His ass still tingled from how tightly Mo had gripped it.

It wasn't a bad tingle, by any means.

_Do you wear cologne?_

"Think about the girl. Teena. Think about her."

_It's just a question._

"Rich. We've gone over this-"

And they had. Many times.

"-you can explore your bisexuality in college. Right now, we need you to be the quintessential, red blooded pussy hound."

It seemed unfair for him to judge. Mo had been the one to grab his ass.

All the same, he couldn’t help but tease his squip a little.

_Well, maybe I can screw another, like, trans dude, and we can bump cunts together._

"Rich, pay attention to the mood in the car."

He began regaling the car with a story of a sexploit in California--nevermind that Jake knew it was a falsehood, at least he offered a courtesy laugh--but continued internally with his squip.

_What? That's still being a pussy hound then._

"It's not the same and you know it." Rich watched as his squip smiled all the same. He reached over, patting Rich's thigh.

"College. We'll explore it together in college. You need to concentrate on your image now."

_I know, I know._

"And more importantly, we need to think about how to deal with Cody."

They'd discussed the possibilities of dealing with Cody before. But the thought left Rich nauseous. There were too many variables that could--that would go wrong.

"Not with me."

_I know. I know, Mo. But god-_

"Tell another sex story."

And so he did. "And this one time, I was fucking this bitch from behind-"

_He's literally twice my height._

"Not literally. He's a little over a foot taller than you."

_No need for your smartass computer tone. You know what I mean._

"You're being a baby. Look at you. Look how far you've come in two and a half months. And you're still afraid of your loser older brother?"

Rich chewed on his lip, only for a light buzz to faintly tug at his veins. He quickly released, as though a rubber band had been snapped at his wrist.

Bad habit. Something he needed to break before school next week.

Another bubble of anxiety. What if he was outed?

"You won't be."

_But what if?_

"Then we go to plan b."

_Which is?_

"Something you don't need to worry about unless all other protocols fail. But don't worry. I've accounted for everything. It is literally--and this is the actual definition of literally--my main purpose and objective in life."

Something about that struck Rich as depressing. His entire life purpose, centered around pleasing Rich, making Rich buff and confident and swaggeringly popular.

"It's not sad."

_Don't you want more?_

"I want you."

Rich's face colored, though given the subject matter of his story (he'd forgotten he was even talking--was Mo outright puppeting his mouth?) it wasn't too unlikely for him to glow with embarrassment and sexual pride.

"I want you to be happy," Mo continued, "And safe and popular and feared."

_I don't want to be feared._

"You don't want to be messed with."

_That's true._

"You don't want to be hurt."

_Also true._

"So you need to be feared."

Rich would have nodded, had they been on their own. Brick pulled up, tires squealing as they arrived at Rich's trailer.

"We need to find a better drop off place from now on," Mo mused. "Having friends see your actual house isn't ideal."

_Fuckin tell me about it, man._

But he was too fixated on the squip's intentions to worry about what Brick or the drunks or, hell, even Jake might think.

Besides, Jake already liked him. And surely must have been proud of him, for opening up. He'd always wanted him to come to more parties, to expose himself to this side of things.

"Don't wave," Mo instructed. "Nod instead."

He offered a nod, as the car spun around, with shouts inside from his new drunken friends. He smiled, and his thighs stuck together, and he nearly floated right into Cody's chest.

"Where the fuck have you been all night?"

"Since when do you care?" He countered. Not too unlike how they might speak before, pre-Moses. It wasn't as though Rich had ever been particularly meek or kind to Cody.

"But you were a doormat. We're going to change that," Mo said. His hand rested against his shoulder. "Roll these back. Stay calm. Drop your shoulders like you aren't on constant guard. But keep an eye on his hands. Don't actually look, just from your periphery."

His senses seemed sharper--surely amplified by a surge in adrenaline that his squip provided.

"You're a mouthy little dyke, aren't you?" Cody sneered. He flicked a finger against Rich's chest. "And what's this? You cut off your titties or something?"

"Shove him."

Rich's arms ached the same way they had when he'd first started doing pull ups. He struck, a cobra in the brush, shoving Cody sharply back. He had to hit upward, with their height difference.

"Keep your hands off me, tall-ass!"

"Tall-ass," Mo snorted. "That's hilarious. We're keeping that."

"Who the fuck do you think you're dealing with?" Cody loomed in. His stance was wide, exposed, and Rich considered kicking him between his legs.

"No. That's how a girl would do it. Curl your fist, untuck your thumb."

The hit was sour. It was the only word he could think to describe it. Sour and sharp, a tangy sort of pain reverberating through Rich's arm as he popped his brother square in the nose.

His fist bounced back after the impact. His other instead lashed out, slamming into Cody's jaw. Spit and blood scattered from his lips and nose, leaving streaks against the yellow-stained wall.

Their father, asleep in the cat piss soaked recliner, sputtered as he sat up. "The hell are you two doing? Go to bed!"

Cody slipped to his knees, cradling his bloody nose in two hands.

"Lean down. Repeat after me."

And so Rich did.

"You're sleeping out here with dad," Rich sneered lowly. "And if you come in my room, if you try anything funny, I'll slice off your dick and fuck a hole straight through your throat."

Cody's eyes gazed up at him in stunned, bleeding silence.

And Rich didn't bother locking the door behind him, grabbing his favorite cat and plopping onto the twin bed.

"Don't you think that was a little graphic?" He asked Mo, letting himself speak out loud in their solitude.

"If anything, it wasn't graphic enough."

"Good point." He smiled, scratching underneath his cat's chin. "So. Fear, you say?"


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is explicit. And inappropriate. And...this is a thing I decided to write. My god. This is what my life has become.

“You’re going to be fine,” Mo had the decency not to laugh at Rich’s nervous energy, but Rich could see the tell-tale smirk on his face. He was a cocky bastard when he wanted to be.

Rich supposed he would be too, if he had all the knowledge in the world. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but Moses at least seemed to know everything about all the important things.

And he certainly knew everything about Rich.

“It’s not funny,” Rich might have whined were this last year. But whining was for little girls and virgins.

Maybe he was still technically the latter, although he’d already gone to seven parties, and made out with at least one girl at each and every one of them.

“You’re going to be doing more than that soon.”

“What, like eating pussy?”

“Exactly.”

Rich paused, right in the middle of gelling his hair for school, and felt his face blister and glow red. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Like, eating real honest to god snatch?”

“Exactly.”

“Me?”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know, I figured you’d, like, possess me and go to Poontown yourself, bro.”

Moses snorted, an indecent little sound that seemed to even momentarily catch himself off guard. He shook his head, clearing his throat slightly. “No. And who said I can possess you? This isn’t the Exorcist, Rich.”

“We just watched that movie. You’re really not being that clever by referencing it.” The movie nights were fun, though. Even if Moses kept spouting spoilers partway through. “But seriously, like, could you?”

“Could I what?”

“You know. Headspinning, split-pea soup puking, exorcism style possess me.”

Moses looked at Rich oddly. “Why would I make you puke up-”

“It’s the special effect they used. Don’t worry about that. Could you?”

“I wouldn’t be able to make your head spin-” As if he didn’t already, the stupidity of his dashing good looks. “-but, well, theoretically I could, yes.”

“Possess me?”

“Yes. For your own good.”

“And eat pussy?”

“I mean, I’d probably only do that in dire circumstances but...purely theoretically?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Cool,” Rich nodded slowly. But that wasn’t the important topic at hand. “Were you serious though, dude? Me, eating pussy?”

“Do you not want to?”

“I didn’t say that,” Rich quickly stammered. And then collected himself, before Mo could reprimand him for the sound. “I just mean, you know…”

“Are you gay, Rich?”

Rich gawked at him, then clumsily shook his head. “No. No, I’m not gay.” He didn’t think.

And then the vision of Michael Mell, sweaty from practice, abruptly flashed in his head. Except it seemed artificial, dragged up from external means. Like Mo decided to snatch the memory, flaunt it, to test his reactions.

Shit, and react he did. Rich felt his body positively clench at the thought, a weird throbbing ache between his legs that he dared not acknowledge.

“If you’re gay, I can work with that.”

“I think I like both.”

“Annnnd I can’t work with that. Not until college. You know that.”

It seemed counterintuitive to Rich. If he was full blown gay, the squip would work with him, harness his attraction to guys, and mold him as a masculine top, or some shit like that, Rich knew he was making a lot of assumptions. But his thoughts were open, and Mo wasn’t contradicting him.

And if he was straight--as was the plan now--Moses would be able to work with him.

But both was off limits?

“Bisexuality has all the worst drawbacks of both cultures. Trust me, you don’t want to explore this in high school. You’ll be a laughingstock to both the GSA and the Future Nazis of America.”

Rich sighed softly. “Yeah, you’re right. And I like the things we’re doing with girls. I just, you know...what if I’m bad at it? Dick seems easier. You just, like, shove it in your mouth and wiggle around.”

“I assure you, it’s a lot more complicated than that.” Another little smile from Moses, though he didn’t expand on it.

And Rich didn’t ask.

“But with snatch, it’s all...it’s all tucked in and secret gardeny. And girls are way pickier. And I’d probably fuck it up. I don’t know how to get a pussy wet.”

“Rich,” Another laugh, Mo’s cheeks genuinely flushing in his amusement. “Rich. Richard. Sweetheart,” Even though the tone was teasing, something about the syllables made Rich’s heart patter. “I hate to say this to you, but you have a pussy.”

“I know that!” Despite the now familiar press of bulge against his crotch, he knew full well the limitations of prosthetic when it came to his body. “But it’s not like I spend a lot of time, like, eating myself out.”

“Or doing anything with yourself. Have you ever even masturbated?”

Rich’s mouth sprang open, but sound evaded him. He could actually feel Moses pick through his mind, strum through every thought and action in his short life.

And no memories sprang forth.

“You haven’t,” He said it almost with a sense of wonder. “Never.”

“It’s just...you know, it seems like a lonely virgin thing.”

“You know, I’m programmed to agree with you there. There’s a desperation that comes off chronic masturbators that isn’t fitting for the image we’re building.”

Rich’s shoulders felt tight. He forced himself to push them down, palms poised and opened in a mock attempt at relaxation. They talked about everything, him and Moses. So why should this be any different?

Hell, Moses was the one who helped him with his hookups! Rich should have felt completely comfortable talking about sexuality with him. Especially since it seemed like the conversation wasn’t going the direction he’d feared it’d be going.

Feared? Or hoped?

“But you’re not desperate. You’re repressed.” Moses grabbed Rich’s hand. “Look at you. You’re shaking.”

“I’m just tired,” He tried to lie. “First day of school jitters.”

“Then we’ll skip school.”

“Wait, what?”

“We’ll ditch. It’s not like your dad is going to care.”

School was the moment they’d been preparing for since day one. Was it wrong, to throw that aside on the very first day of the semester?

“It’ll be fine,” Mo insisted. “You’ll seem more intriguing, if you’re brand new and already ditching. Come on.”

Rich blindly allowed Mo to guide him from the bathroom. His feet scraped against the ground as they found their way back into the bedroom. The door had been fixed, an insistence by Moses, and Rich numbly flipped the lock, before taking a seat on the edge of one of the twin beds. Moses sat on the other, the one which had once been Cody’s, before he’d relocated to the living room.

They stared at each other intensely, before Rich giggled, high pitched and nervous. “What’re you looking at?”

“You,” Moses spoke frankly.

Rich glowed red, and faced his feet. “I don’t know why.”

“You’re really terrified, aren’t you?”

“I, um, I guess.”

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“You know why. Come on. Don’t be like this,” He said gently. “I’ve already been let in. You can’t shut me out now.”

“I don’t know. I guess I just...I don’t know.” Rich stared at his hands. They were shaking, quivering unseamly before his very eyes.

“Yes you do.”

“I just...I hate my body,” He hated to say it, even whispered. Maybe he should have just thought it instead. Except it lingered, every moment, so surely Moses already knew.

His lack of surprise at the confession only solidified this truth. “That’s normal.” Then, with a touch more humanity, “You shouldn’t, though. You’re not any less complete just because you don’t have-”

“It’s not just that. I mean, a lot of it’s that. But it’s just...I don’t know, dude. It sounds dirty, I guess. T...touching.” He shivered, and scratched his nails over his thighs, over the holes in skinny jeans that broke dress code, an outfit Mo had insisted on for his first day.

A first day they were apparently skipping, or at least postponing.

Apparently this masturbation topic was going to be a whole thing now.

“Then let me help you.”

Rich’s alarm spiked, and his blood ran cold as he looked at Moses. “You said no boys,” He finally managed to get out.

“I’m not a boy.”

“Right. You’re a man.”

Moses grinned. “I’m a supercomputer. But I like that. That’s funny. No, Rich, I can’t touch you. Not right now. But I can help you touch yourself.”

Not right now.

So it wasn’t off the table. Though, given their structure, probably another of those ‘not until college’ things.

He’d have to study hard and see about graduating early then.

...wait did he just say he was going to help him touch himself???

“I should get ready for school.”

“Fuck school.”

The profanity from Moses was so absurd as to be wonderful. Rich laughed again, a little looser, freer, than his earlier sounds. He shifted against the bed, eyes briefly going towards the window, then back to Moses.

“Fuck school, and fuck myself?”

“Exactly. It’ll be good for you.” Moses spoke so smoothly. Who the hell was Rich to argue with the expert? “The more you know about yourself, the more you’ll know about bringing pleasure to others. It’s not enough to have sex, Rich. We need you to have good sex. To impress the girls around school, to bolster your reputation.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“And if it’s too much, we’ll deal with that as it comes.”

“Or until I cum.”

“Enough being cute.”

“Aww.” He joked, batting his eyelashes playfully, before falling back against the bed. He stared up at the cracks in the popcorn ceiling. “It’s just, you know, I don’t know where to start.”

“Take off your shirt.”

It wasn’t like Rich hadn’t been naked in front of his squip before. Wasn’t like he wasn’t already inside him, hadn’t seen every last bit of his body, mind, and soul. 

But he wavered. “Why? I just need to, like, flick the bean or whatever, right? I could probably keep all my clothes on for that.”

“No. You need to worship your body. Shirt, off.”

Rich sat back up, groaning quietly. “Okay, fine.” He slipped his tank top over his head, briefly enveloped in darkness, before the cloth sprang free. Cool air caressed his body, his breathing tight with his binder-

“Now the binder.”

Rich wanted to argue. More than he’d ever argued with Moses before. Stealing had been easy. Exercising had been easy. Fighting Cody had been easy.

This was a herculean task.

“Don’t laugh,” He finally said, throat dry.

“You’re not a joke, Rich. I wouldn’t laugh.”

“Really. Please. Don’t laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“Do we really need-”

“Promise, Mo? Please? Just don’t laugh at me, okay?” His voice hitched, arms shaking as he clutched at the very bottom of his binder, preparing to peel it off. “I know I’m ugly and weird and stupid and please don’t laugh, okay? Okay, Mo? Please? Please promise you won’t-”

A sense of peace began to fall over him, a wash of euphoria and dopamine over the train of self-doubting misery.

“Relax, Rich.” Moses said. Smooth and safe and warm and his eyes were so sweetly empathetic. So blue and bright and human and, fuck, he’d do anything for him. Anything at all.

“I promise. I won’t laugh at you. I’m here to help you.”

“O-okay.”

“Although I thought you liked my laugh,” Moses added, small smile on his face.

“I do, I just...shut up. Well, don’t. You don’t have to...I just...fuck, man, this is weird, okay? It’s freaky weird, you have to admit.”

“It’s a little unortho--okay, yes. It’s weird. But you know I have the right idea here.”

“I know. Okay. Fine. Just--you promised, okay?”

“I know.”

Rich took in a deep breath, and on his exhale, he removed his binder. His breasts, modest as they were, felt heavy and ungainly. Ugly. 

And he knew Mo didn’t have to breathe, but it sounded so much like his breath caught that it made Rich’s chest ache, and heat flood to his groin, and how the hell was he supposed to process all of this again?

“I’m not touching my tits,” Rich blurted. “Not right now, okay? I can’t.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to. Put your hand between your legs.”

Rich bit the corner of his lip, shocked that he wasn’t zapped to stop the habit this time. Moses seemed preoccupied. He crawled his fingers down his stomach, until he reached his jeans. His hands slipped lower still.

The heat of his own body shocked him, as his hand cupped his cunt through his own clothing. Even with the packer, he was easily able to feel the heat. He sucked in a breath, eyes briefly closing. His thumb twitched, rubbing himself through his clothes, and he couldn’t help but to squirm against the bed.

“Fuck.” Another curse from Mo, his blue eyes dancing over Rich’s body. He seemed to devour him, unblinking and hyper-focused. “Do you feel that? Feel how hot you are?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know how bad I want to fuck you.”

The words were husky and heavy and Rich fell back once again, his other arm flinging over his eyes. Even his eyeballs felt feverish and strained. “Oh my god. Dude...”

“You want me, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Why deny it, when his thoughts were screaming it?

“Unbutton your pants. That’s right, like that.” Rich hardly realized his fingers were moving, stumbling over undoing his button. It popped open, and his zipper sounded obscene as he slipped it down. “Now slip your hand into your pants. Over your underwear. You’re getting wet, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yes, sir,” Moses instructed.

“Yes, sir.” He practically sang it, and he realized with a dull sense of wonder that his lisp was back.

Moses’s smile intoxicated Rich. “I want to hear you exactly as you are,” He purred. “I want you just like this. Sexy. Mine.”

“A-all yours.”

“That’s right. Rub your cunt for me, Rich. I want you to touch yourself, and imagine it’s my hand.”

It was so unfair, him staring and instructing, when he could have done it himself. The knowledge that he was so close to getting him only fueled him on. He rubbed his cunt through his boxers, navigating effortlessly around his packer-

“Take it out.”

It was almost a relief, to get it out of the way. To increase the pressure on himself. He bucked into his own hand, separated only by miniscule cloth, legs constricted by his jeans.

“Take them off for me.”

 

“Okay.”

“No. Yes, sir, Rich. Call me by my title properly.”

“Yes, sir. Oh...oh, god, M...s-sir, fuck!”

He sat back up, roughly kicking off his jeans. They fumbled around his ankles, before he twisted them out of the way completely. His other hand gripped his sheets, greedy fistfuls which clawed at fabric.

He rubbed himself against his hand, rutting over his fingertips until they glistened with his wetness. He felt a little strange about it, a little off-

“Good boy.”

A little fucking perfect.

“Now take the boxers off.”

Rich met his eyes, keeping them locked as he hooked his thumbs into his boxers. They stuck to him, elastic coming loose as the fabric clung to his wet cunt. He finally drew them away with a yank, lifting his hips to fully remove them. 

And Moses was staring. Staring right at him. “Lay down again. And spread your legs. I want to see you. All of you.”

“Fuck. Yes, sir.” Rich settled back against his bed, the springs worn and familiar against his bare back. His nipples were hard, pointed directly at the ceiling, and his legs ached as he pulled them apart.

The room felt so cold against the furnace of heat between his legs. Rich pressed his palms against his thighs, and heard Mo’s body shift. He glanced up, only to find Moses kneeling between his legs.

It was so indecent that Rich had to slam his legs shut. Except his thighs met resistance, squeezing against Moses’s face.

Moses laughed, and Rich swore he felt his breath against his clit. 

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh,” Rich said in a dreamy haze, as his legs opened once more.

“I know, and I’m sorry. You’re just...you’re just so cute, Rich. I don’t know how you don’t know it.”

The tenderness shattered, though, with the gruff, starved request. “Now pull yourself open for me.”

“Jesus.” Rich whimpered. Both his hands moved towards their target, until he was parting his lips with the sort of lewd ease of a pornstar.

But he wasn’t a pornstar. He was a nervous teenage boy, in front of the man of his literal dreams.

And Moses actually moaned in approval. “Perfect.”

He hadn’t even gotten to the good part yet, but that voice, moaning and breathy for him, was enough to push Rich over.

The orgasm was swift, sharp, and Rich felt tears prick at his eyes as his body rode up into his own touch. True to his original intentions, Moses didn’t touch him, at least not until Rich’s legs pressed against his head again Desperate for contact, for something to move against.

Electricity danced through his veins, through his mind, through every organ, until it rushed and released down between his legs. He came like he was dying, thrashing and struggling and fighting and good god how had he gone so long without doing this? Without feeling that?

Rich waited for his eyes to snap open, to inevitably prove this was all an elaborate dream sequence.

When he opened his eyes, Moses continued to stare at him. Coy smile on his lips.

Rich huffed softly, releasing his thighs from his face, curling up onto his side.

His voice came out hoarse, exhausted, unsteady. “Can I suck your dick now?”

“No,” Moses brushed his hand over Rich’s thigh. His eyes were cloudy, far away, a contemplative privacy washing over him as he ran his fingers up and down tenderly. “I don’t want to confuse this moment for you. This was for you.”

“Okay.”

“Plus you have a big week ahead of you.”

“Right.” School. Debuting himself. The worries seemed so far away now. How could he care about anything besides this? “Sorry I didn’t last longer.”

“We’ll build up your stamina.”

Rich’s pulse accelerated. And his cunt felt hot and empty and needy and, oops, he still had his fingers against himself. He let go, only for Moses to grab his wrist.

“We better start practicing right now.”


	14. Chapter 14

The halls of Middle Borough parted for Rich Goranski.

He thought about how fitting Moses’s name was right then, the symmetry of biblical names parting the red seas. Except Rich wasn’t fleeing from oppression (or maybe there was a sense of flight here, fleeing and abandoning everything he'd known in his youth, everything he'd felt growing up, and embracing a sense of power he'd never thought possible for anyone, let alone himself.

Mo walked beside him, though he was of course unseen. Still, it blew Rich away to think his classmates were looking at him, and not his impressively handsome computer...friend?

Boyfriend?

Lover?

"You're really fixated on labeling it, aren't you?" Mo chuckled softly. "We'll figure it out. It's your first day, though. Look alive."

_I am alive._

"Well, look it. I mean, you know I like that daydreaming look on your face, but you need to set your jaw. And smile, but like you're laughing at a joke in your head that's a little mean, and may be about the person who's looking at you."

_Man, you're going to turn me into a total b-hole, aren't you?_

"The b-iest hole of them all," Mo teased. His expression grew more serious. "I'm going to make you tough. You've done well, you look the part, you walk the part, but now you need to establish the type of man you'll be."

_Forever?_

The thought was paralyzing, and he briefly paused near the row of Freshman lockers.

"Not forever," Mo said, smooth as silk and just as luxurious against his skin. "Just until you graduate. High school doesn't matter."

_I know._

But he didn't.

"It really doesn't. Nobody stays the same from high school into the real world. Yes, I won't lie to you. You're going to need to be a jerk. Not to Jake, don't worry. Not to your girlfriends. But yes, you need to show you're an alpha male, and that involves a level of...well, of toxic masculinity."

_Toxic. Sounds lovely._

He'd begun to walk again, offering a head nod to one of the girls he'd previously dry humped. She blushed, giggling to her friends, who began to blush and smile along with her.

It was thrilling, getting a pretty girl to notice you.

"It's like inoculations, Rich. Sometimes you have to fill yourself with a little, diluted version of the poison you want to repel. You don't want to be treated like shit anymore, do you?"

_No._

"You want to be respected, right?"

_Yes, but I don't want to be like Cody._

"You're never going to be like him." Mo's expression briefly hardened. "You're nothing like him. If I were his squip, well, let's just say you'd only have a single twin bed in your room right now."

_You'd kill him?_

Mo didn't confirm it.

But he didn't deny it either.

It was awfully flattering, but strangely unnerving. Was that something squips could do? Just decide to make you kill yourself, or fuck with your DNA until you croaked?

Rich supposed it wouldn't be so bad, dying. Except things had just started to get so good.

If he needed to take this vaccine, throw a little toxicity into the school in order to ultimately push it away, so be it.

And push he would, as Mo instructed him. He moved to the sophomore hallways, his new locker's home.

"Now who are the biggest losers in your class?"

Rich hesitated only a moment, before his eyes flickered over. Jeremy Heere and...

God, Michael was cute.

The warning shock was sharp, sudden, and Rich had to swallow to keep from crying out.

_Jesus, Mo._

"Sorry," He said breezily, breaking his own no apology rule. "No thoughts like that now, though. Maybe at home, but not here."

I don't think about him when I practice that.

And boy, had they been practicing a lot. His cunt ached just a little, with the ferocity with which they'd gone at it yesterday, fingers and eventually objects, exploring and touching and Moses watching every moment of it all.

Rich's forehead suddenly felt too hot, slick with sweat.

"I know you don't." Moses said, all cockiness and swagger. "You think about me."

Rich's smile briefly became shy, self-conscious. He hardened it again, then let it drop completely, as his eyes moved over the two.

"Let's see," Moses assessed them. "Complete outcasts. Yes, they'll do perfectly. Go knock Michael's books out of his hands."

Rich sighed softly. He wanted to bow his head, to shuffle forward, but Moses made him lift his feet with confidence, head poised.

Michael looked towards him as he came into vision. And smiled, a confused, greeting for a new student sort of smile.

Rich knocked his fist upward, punching the books from his arms. Michael's smile fell before the books did, as they clattered to the floor.

"Don't look at me, faggot," Rich snapped sharply.

"What the hell?" Jeremy said, high pitched and-

"Scared. He's afraid of you. Shove him against the locker," Moses said smoothly.

Rich balled one hand into a fist, the other grabbing Jeremy's shirt. Despite the height difference, he bodily lifted him, until Jeremy was on his toes. He slammed him against the locker, faking a punch towards him but stopping before he could connect.

"I don't need you and your fat-ass girlfriend fantasizing about me, tall-ass." He finally let his fist connect, punching the locker directly beside Jeremy's head. "Got it?"

Jeremy flinched, face pale, eyes closed. He nodded rapidly. "G-got it."

"That's right." He released him. And smiled. "You ladies have a nice semester now," He said with a mocking lilt, as he paced away from them.

"What a dick," Michael's voice was soft, but insistent. Rich didn't have to turn around to know he was tending to Jeremy, fetching him most likely from the ground.

Rich's stomach churned with guilt.

"See? It wasn't that bad, right? They're not dead."

_Oh god, what if they kill themselves?_

"Because you called him tall-ass? I doubt that'll be the moment that pushes them over the edge. Besides," Moses scoffed, "Heere's more likely to shoot up the school than himself, don't you think?"

_Fuck, Mo, that's not funny._

And for once, it really wasn't. But it wasn't as though Rich was going to tell him that.


	15. Chapter 15

Rich hadn't gotten halfway through the day before his phone was filled with hundreds of numbers, numbers which were already texting him and inviting him to the latest parties.

_Isn't this going a little fast?_

"Don't you think you've waited long enough?"

Moses seemed so certain that Rich deserved all the best. Rich squirmed in his seat, staring at his lunch tray.

"Pick up your tray, and throw it out. Tray and all."

So of course Rich did. And was so immediately invited out with the seniors to ditch for the rest of the day and grab pizza that he hardly knew what hit him.

Hell, that wasn't saying much. He never seemed to know what was hitting him nowadays. Just that the hits felt so good.

And just as the summer had become a normal routine, so did school. A routine of quickly flourishing inside jokes, and arranged weekend dates with girls who drove cars ("We'll get you your license soon," Mo assured him, "But in the meantime, we'll stick with drivers, and I'll teach you how to give a girl roadhead.").

A routine of football tryouts and Jake covering for him as he changed in the private stall ("Not ideal," Mo admitted, "But even cool guys have idiosyncrasies."). Rich barely remembered the tryouts themselves, or the practices that followed. It was easier, when it came to sports, to trance out, to let Moses take over.

There was a lot more of that lately. Entire days would span where Rich couldn't recall a thing, save for a dull ache of white noise and some half-shadowed memories. 

"Do I need to know?" He'd ask Mo, as Moses began to give an explanation.

"Not really," Moses admitted, a smile touching on his lips. "Aren't you curious?"

"Not really."

And so he never learned. And it was okay. All he knew was that when Moses took the wheel, the next days of clarity were some of the best he'd ever experienced.

Besides, when Moses took over, he could handle the unsavory business of picking on Jeremy and Michael.

Those were some of Rich's lowest moments. If he could just outsource it, it really was better for morale all around.

"We'll work on that sensitivity some other time," Moses would say, but allow the subject to drop. 

So it became weekend benders and joyriding in his father's car to practice for the upcoming driver's test. And then it became homecoming prince assignments and a relationship with Brooke, an exclusivity that should have been thrilling and sweet, but ended (amicably) by Christmas break.

"Now you don't have to buy her a present," Mo said.

But Rich did anyway.

Because it was the kind thing to do.

And because he'd already purchased it before they split.

And because it would bolster his reputation with other girls. "Girls talk."

"I know."

"And even if you're no longer together, Brooke is going to talk about you. And it's important that what she says is that you're sweet, good with your tongue, and masculine."

"How do you think I did?"

"My perfect student."

"Thank you, sir." He teased the last syllable, just to watch Moses's face briefly light up, before he softly shoved Rich's shoulder.

"Stop," He said, gentle and affectionate. And then, "We'll have all Christmas break for that."

God, was Moses ever insistent about the masturbation. Some nights, Rich was too tired, and Moses would still prod at him until he kicked off his pants, and slipped his fingers between his legs.

"You're ridiculous," He'd moan weakly, forced through orgasm after orgasm until he couldn't handle anymore.

And then forced through one more, just for good measure.

All in all, with the parties and the new teammates and the self-love, Rich hardly had time to think about how much he'd improved, had little chance for introspection or reflection. The amount of time spent with Moses--though he was there every step of the way--seemed diminished too. Less movie nights and stargazing, more keg stands and hard tackling.

It didn't help that Mo had to deactivate every time Rich drank.

And drinking, Moses insisted, he needed to do. "You'll fit in better with your peers."

Maybe he did. It was hard to tell. But it was lonely, sipping his beer and trying to observe the same way his squip did. To act right, yes, but also to hold the memories until Moses could assess them.

Not to improve, if he was honest. But so Moses could experience some of the fun too.

It seemed unfair, that he had to live his life, his entire existence, all within Rich's limited perspective. It was only right, for him to experience all that school, all that life had to offer, if only so Moses could get a little bit of variety, a little bit of purpose and sensation beyond Rich jacking off and talking about scientific theories.

Not that he could read or watch any science fiction anymore, but Moses seemed unfazed by him communicating it.

Maybe because he liked to brag about his own logistics. The updates his system was sure to get down the line. The capabilities he'd use were Rich actually a girl.

"It's a shame, I'm sure helping you be an olympic gymnast would have been fun."

"A shame?"

"Not a shame. Wrong phrasing. There's something interesting about that. I know other squips who created rock stars and brain surgeons and actors. It's exciting, seeing what you'll become."

"And what do you want me to become?"

"Happy."

Rich couldn't disguise the grin on his face. Because damn, if he wasn't happier than he ever thought possible. To think, he'd been planning suicide before purchasing his squip.

"God, that sounds slavey, doesn't it?" Rich blurted.

"Hm?"

"I bought you."

"So? You're my host, that's the way these things work."

"I know, but...god. I'd free you if I could."

"I wouldn't let you. I like your dirty little mind, Richard."

"That's Dickard to you, young man."

They sat across from each other in the bathtub, though Moses was still fully clothed, unaffected by the water. Rich hated the bathtub in their house, but they'd scrubbed it, bleached it thoroughly, before getting into the water.

Moses lifted a cup of water, effortlessly pouring it through Rich's hair.

"Anyways," Rich said once the water cascaded. "That's only because you don't know any other minds."

"I know all possibilities, Rich. Trust me. There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

Rich smiled down at his water wrinkled toes.

"Now grab the shower head," Moses chirped. "I want to show you something really fun."


	16. Chapter 16

"But here's the thing." Rich twisted his hands through the air, two dueling ballerinas through the friction of space between them. He wanted to grab the atoms, tug them sharply, until they disappeared and Moses was closer. As close as close could be. He wanted to melt into his skin.

But they were talking about homework assignments now. And loopholes, in this case.

Because Rich wasn't allowed to read for pleasure anymore. And certainly not science fiction.

"Not until college," as the mantra kept going.

But this was a class project. Ergo, Rich reasoned, it was okay to discuss.

And Moses seemed intrigued. Had sat through as Rich had read the story through, outloud...twice. Animated and excitable and lisp managing to slip through on certain words despite himself, or despite the mechanical realignment from his squip at any rate.

"What's the thing?" Mo prompted.

"Like...okay, it's sad, right? It's sad that she dies, that it's hopeless and calculated and there's no hope for her. She's doomed for her own naivety and, like, that childlike ideal that even breaking the rules isn't going to kill you, right, dude?" Rich paused, rubbed the back of his neck. "I know what I'm trying to say, but it's not coming out right."

"She's doomed and young and stupid, and it's supposed to be sad."

"Right! But in more academic terms that I don't have." He watched as Moses grinned at him. "College words," Rich added.

"Right. And you know you're pressing it here."

"I know, I know. I'll write a C- paper and slide by with an average GPA, don't worry."

"You don't worry me. But go on. What's your position here?"

"I mean. Okay. I know it's called "The Cold Equations" and all, but it's sorta cool, right? I mean, it's all in the science, the math. Mathematically doomed. Mathematical destiny. That's so fucking cool." Rich flopped back on his bed, tilting his face against his pillow to look at Mo again. "Like, yeah, she's doomed by it. But think of all the people where these same supposedly cold equations save. Or like, the fact that her life had an impact because of these equations--a shitty impact, yeah, this guy's going to be traumatized for life. But it's not cold-"

"It's cold," Moses cut off. "Just in terms of being without emotion."

"Amoral. Right! But I like that. It's so cool." Rich laid back, smiling towards his ceiling. "I want to be a robot."

"You don't."

"Ah, but I do!"

"Trust me. Being human is much better."

"You're not a bot though, Mo. You're pretty much just an invisible dude." Rich looked him over. The little twitches of individuality that ran through him. He was stricken with the sudden urge to run his fingers through his hair, to kiss his jawline, and though it wasn't the right word, he couldn't help but blurt it. "You're really pretty, Mo, you know that?"

"I know." It seemed cocky at first, but Mo shrugged. "I look exactly how your subconscious wants me to look."

"A metrosexual Khal Drogo." Rich held up a hand before he could respond. "No no, Game of Thrones is a fantasy series, NOT science fiction, AND I'm not reading it, I'm watching it on HBO, so I'm WELL within the rules."

Moses slipped out of Cody's bed, taking a seat next to Rich on his own bed. He reached out, scraping his fingernails over the back of Rich's hand, pricking just slightly over his veins in the process. The sensation made him shiver, and he looked at his squip in awe.

"I don't look like Khal Drogo."

"A little. All tall dark and handsome and man-bunny."

Moses grinned. "I look biblical, if anything."

"Nah. No robes."

"A metrosexual Jesus is better than a metrosexual casual child rapist."

"Okay, but like, Daenerys liked it, so it's actually kinda romantic if you think-"

Moses grasped Rich's chin and pulled him in, until their lips crashed. THe kiss was sudden and harsh and wet and Rich's mind whirred with the daunting realization that this couldn't logically be happening, and the delighted murmur of excitement that this was definitely happening.

Moses's tongue drew Rich's mouth open. It was a different position than kissing the girls, all the more thrilling as his wrists were collected and pinned above his head. Mo pushed him flush against the bed, Rich's body arched and pressed up against his hard body. His packer pressed against Mo's chin, and the squip broke the kiss to look down at him, smiling affectionately.

"You could be my unburnt," He said, husky and so fucking nerdy--it didn't occur to Rich until moments like this that surely Mo already had a database of all pop culture, and how fucking boring must he find Rich, reading stories he already had memorized and talking about shows he probably already knew all the spoilers to--and he was kissing him again, starved and depraved, teeth and tongue and stubble.

Rich drowned in him, shivering and whining, clutching at his back desperately. 

"Mother of dragons," Rich gasped as the kiss was broken once more. His eyes were closed, lips still straining for more kissing.

Mo laughed, that soft sweet sound that shouldn't have been so human, but left Rich straining for more more more. "It's not a bad comparison. But," he drew back. "We don't have time for this, not yet."

"What?"

Mo's fingers scraped through his hair, briefly undoing the tie holding his dark hair back. He collected it with his fingertips, staring off with an almost sad sense of melancholy.

"You need more money. And I know just the opportunity."

"Sure, Mo. Whatever you want."

"And Rich?"

"Yeah?"

Mo kept his eyes trained on the window, exhaling slowly. "No more reading to me."


	17. Chapter 17

Jake's house.

Rich stared. He stared until his eyes dried, and finally he allowed himself to blink. Had earned a moment's reprieve.

Only to stare even harder.

"Mo, I can't," His voice cracked, and he waited for the spark of electricity that would urge him on.

It didn't come. Moses seemed unsteady, gaze glazed and turned away from Rich. As though holding a conversation of his own, within his own mind. Did Mo have his own mind? His own consciousness? His own thoughts? He'd always taken such an existence for granted, but did squips have their own internal universes, just as Rich had his own?

He waited for Mo to lean into his thoughts and answer him, but the silence in the wealthy neighborhood spoke volumes.

"Did I do something to piss you off?"

Mo finally looked at him. He blinked, the fog still within his eyes, as he finally shook his head. "No. You're good. You're very good."

Rich felt a tickle of delight at the praise, but it seemed hollowed out.

He needed to prove himself. Recapture that spark.

...and Jake had the means. He had the means to support this.

"Okay. I know where...I know where they keep some of their funds." Jake's parents didn't believe in banks. Or vaccinations. Or security cameras.

Jake's parents were sentient piles of feces, and for a moment Rich's rage towards them eclipsed his nerves about the mission itself, his betrayal of his best friend, his need to satisfy his squip and get his attention returned onto him.

"Good." Another airy reply, as Moses's eyes once more drifted towards the road, the cars passing by. Maybe he was playing lookout, but it hardly felt that way. It seemed more avoident than that. 

"Are you coming with me?"

"No--well, yes, I'll be in your head like always. I need some air."

It made little sense. Rich knew he didn't have a physical body. He didn't have any way to get any air. But the implication was there--he'd technically be with him, but the communication would be severed, the image of him would be severed.

In a sense, maybe that'd be easier. He was about to rob his oldest, and really his only, friend. Even if Jake had the means, even though he'd likely never know, had enough that losing any of it would be mere pennies to him, the thought of it made Rich sick.

The thought of Moses continuing to ignore him and give pat answers made him sicker though.

Jake's house was familiar, warm, and empty. He was on a date, surely, with Chloe. Which meant he wouldn't be home until the morning--not that his parents would care (if his parents were even home--truth be told, Rich hadn't even considered that possibility). He took a moment to look around the kitchen--the entrance he'd chosen to go in through--and almost brought himself to steal a soda from the fridge.

No, he told himself. Because he had to tell himself that, because Moses really wasn't saying anything. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he could feel the lack of his presence within his mind.

And it clutched at him, clawed at his insides, a deeper sort of emptiness than the drunken parties where he'd have to manually order Moses to shut down for fear of causing any lasting damage to the unit.

What if he was broken? What if that was his goodbye? His hands shook at the refrigerator door, tearing it open despite telling himself no only seconds before.

He clutched a can of mountain dew, popping the tab and listening to the familiar fizz.

Mountain Dew had activated him in the first place, right? So maybe-

"Rich, you're here to rob the place, not for a drink break."

Rich paused, can halfway to his mouth. And he stared. He stared the same way he'd stared at Jake's house earlier, in disbelief and heartache and confusion.

And then wonder.

"You're not gone?"

"Of course not." Moses looked at him oddly. "Why would I leave?"

"I don't know." Rich felt his eyes start to sting. No. Oh no. Fuck. Fuck no.

He waited for Moses to yell at him or punish him or otherwise bring him down. As his tears welled and he started to sob. He clapped a hand over his mouth, to try to stifle his own misery. After all, maybe he was mistaken. Maybe Jake really was home.

His knees began to give out, his eyes so full of tears that he couldn't see Moses in front of him. All he could do was crumble and whimper.

Moses's arms slipped underneath his arms, catching him before he could hit the ground. Rich was blubbering, a sopping mess of a boy.

"I know it's hard, I know he's your friend, but-"

"You're mad at me." Rich sobbed. "You're obviously mad at me. Oh god. God, I'm sorry."

Mo hesitated only a moment, before a small laugh escaped him. "I'm not mad at you. Don't be so melodramatic. Come on now." He lowered both of them to the ground, gingerly swiping a finger beneath his eyes. The force wasn't enough to wipe away all his tears, but it briefly surprised Rich enough to get his sob to freeze in his throat.

"I'm just worried, maybe I've been too lenient with you." He looked away, a momentary glossy quality to his eyes once more, before a smile returned. "I just need to make you into the best man that I can, you understand?"

"I thought you said I already was."

"I know what I've said. I just...you need money, Rich. More than what you have now. This is going to help. Once we get the funds, we're going to begin a new phase in our relationship. And you're going to be rolling in it."

"The relationship?"

"Money. But," Moses's smile grew wider, and the spark in his eye returned. "Steal two grand here tonight, and yes, yes we absolutely can see about rolling in it that way, too."

Hot tears slithered down Rich's face, jostled by the blink of his long eyelashes. "You mean sex," He breathed, stunned.

"Yes."

"Like...like real sex."

"Yes."

"PIV sex."

"Yes."

"With you."

"Yes, Richard, with me. Who else?"

No one. No one else. Rich took a small sip of the soda he'd grabbed, as though to quench the suddenly too tight muscles of his throat. How was he going to loosen up?

Oh god. How was he going to loosen up? Was Moses big? He'd felt big, from when they'd pressed together before, or maybe he was misremembering, mixing fantasy with-

"We'll take our time. Trust me, I'm going to make sure I fit."

Oh Jesus Christ. Rich tried not to sputter, as Moses brushed his thumb against Rich's mouth.

"I know I shouldn't," He said slowly. "We really shouldn't. But one time, one time can't hurt."

"It's not like I haven't been wanking myself raw for you for months now," Rich pointed out, as he clumsily got to his feet. The faster he did this--god, stealing from his best friend just so he could get some dick, how utterly pathetic was that?--the faster they could go home and-

"Fuck."

"What, no making love?"

Mo's eyes were so soft, so sweet, that Rich nearly fell back to his knees again. Nearly threw a prayer to the heavens above. Nearly jumped on that cock right then and there.

"Fine. I'll make love to you, Rich."


	18. Chapter 18

Two thousand dollars looked so much smaller in person. Small enough in hundreds that he considered trading it in for ones.

Moses grabbed the money from his hand, flipping through it rapidly, before abruptly tossing it onto the bed. They'd shoved both twin beds together, because, as Mo had said, they'd need ample room.

And though he knew it couldn't be possible, that surely it was all within his own mind, Moses hefted Rich into his arms as well. Rich tried to rationalize it. He was just pulling himself upright, in some sort of lustful trance, some playtime of smut and filth, and Moses was just observing him internally.

But it felt like Moses was picking him up. Cradling him.

Then tossing him onto the bed, onto the small scattering of bills.

"Stop trying to think about the logistics," Mo laughed. "You want so badly to fit this into some science fiction narrative. Well," He crawled over Rich, body draped over him. Their lips were so close, he could taste the wintergreen of Mo's breath, "I'm not fiction." He grabbed Rich's hand, sliding it between his own legs.

Fuck.

He really was huge.

"Does this feel like fiction?"

"No, sir," Rich said meekly.

Mo released his hand, brushing his lips against the tip of his nose. "No need for that. Right now, we're equals."

"Boyfriends?" Rich questioned. His lips stung with the words, and he held his breath for the reprimand and denial.

Instead, Mo cradled his head in both hands. "Boyfriends," He confirmed.

This time, the kiss was soft. Nearly as delicate as the pillow underneath Rich's head. He groaned softly, as the kisses danced down his throat, as Moses slipped his hand underneath his shirt. He touched his chest gently, squeezing him over his binder.

"Mo?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

"Yes."

Rich shouldn't have liked that answer. But he glowed, bubbling against the bed as his binder was unceremoniously parted from his skin, pushed up underneath his shirt. Mo grasped his breasts gently, thumbs rotating against his nipples, back and forth, flicking and squeezing and rubbing, and Rich couldn't help but to squirm, pressing his crotch up against Mo's with a desperate buck.

"Relax."

Except Rich didn't. He was anything but relaxed. As Mo pulled back, Rich sat up, just enough to toss off his shirt and binder in one quick peel of cloth. He tossed both articles of clothing across the room, then grabbed Mo's hand, placing it back against his chest.

"Please?"

"Fuck." Moses ran his hand over him, his other sliding between Rich's legs. He could feel the pressure of him stroking his packer, gripping and manipulating it until the movements were brushing against Rich's cunt. He tried not to whine, just as he tried not to fall in love.

Both were factually impossible. Mathematically impossibly. Except this equation was so far from cold-

Moses laughed, tilting his head forward until he was nuzzling against Rich's neck. "No," He giggled. "Stop. You can't think things like that while I'm seducing you."

"I can't help it. It was a good story."

Mo bit him, teeth grazing against his collarbone, and though it was harsh, the laughter chasing it was so sweet and tender that Rich forgot to yelp in pain.

It felt too good anyway. Moses could have slit his throat right then and he'd have moaned with the pleasure as he drowned in his own blood.

"Not a sexy visual," Mo said breezily.

"It's a little sexy."

"No death fetishism for our first time."

"Third time's the charm then."

Rich's fingers moved to Mo's top, undoing button after button. He'd long wondered what he looked like underneath these clothes of his. And the strip of dark skin that met his eyes did nothing to disappoint. Rich gasped, as Mo pinched his nipple, and he shrugged the shirt off Moses's toned shoulder. The peek of his body made him squirm, shuddering with the absolute craving for friction and heat.

"Mo?"

"Hm?"

"Are you, like...are you going to cum inside me?"

Moses's breath caught for a moment--and god, how cute was it that he breathed? It was only just occurring to Rich how cute a design feature that was--and then he nodded slowly. "Yes I am."

"Cool. Can you knock me up? I can have little squiplets and we can, I don't know, start a family band or something."

"You can't sing."

"So? You could teach me."

"What makes you think I could do that?"

"You can do anything." He grasped Mo's shirt, fully pulling it away, pushing the fabric to opposite ends of his body to fully expose his chest.

And what a chest it was. Toned didn't begin to describe the god-like perfection. This was what greek sculptors aimed for, chiseled marble and fine craftsmanship.

"Oh my god." Rich strummed his fingers down his chest, hands shaking all the more the further down his touch went. The bumped musculature of his abs left him throbbing, his heart rate plummeting down into his clit in rapid order. "Holy shit."

"You like that?"

"Yes!" Rich's lips were too dry. He licked them, nearly drooling upon himself. "You're so sexy, Mo. Why do you even wear clothes?"

"To keep you from drooling."

"I'm not that smitten."

"Well, I am."

Mo grabbed his hips, grinding his cock against Rich's body in one sudden, fluid thrust. The clothing and prosthetic between them only amplified the reality. This was happening. This was really happening. Rich tangled his fingers in Moses's hair and pulled him down, biting his bottom lip in the kiss.

The exploration of each other’s bodies lasted for hours. Strumming fingers over Moses’s chest, as he undressed Rich. His fingers fit tight within him, curling until Rich sobbed and pleaded and whimpered. More. He needed more. He needed everything.

And everything was exactly what he got.

He wasn’t sure if this was how sex was supposed to feel. Like every synapse was popping and exploding, like his atoms were tearing apart and the only thing keeping him together was Moses’s lips and hips and cock and hands. He fucked him, deep and heavy, his hands never leaving contact with Rich’s skin. 

Mine, his actions screamed. His kisses burned and Rich wanted to dance in the ashes.

Except he knew after this there wouldn’t be much dancing. He’d surely be sore, aching in ways he didn’t even fully comprehend. Because it couldn’t be real, but he’d never experienced anything truer than this, this dirty little dance between their frantic, tantric bodies.

The sun was rising by the time Moses finished, cumming inside him in thick, possessive thrusts. A sign of inhumanity, an artificial stamina, but Rich certainly wasn’t complaining. Rich, already on orgasm five, could only whisper his name, throat raw and broken from crying out so many times. He was certain he’d heard his father at one point banging on the walls, screaming at him to be quiet, but Rich couldn’t bring himself to care.

The money, that which hadn’t been blown off the bed with their fucking was sticky and wet against Rich’s back, against his arms, against his legs. Moses laughed softly, arms draped lazily, possessively, around Rich’s torso. He peeled one of them off, flicking the $100 across the room.

“I think I’m in love with you.” Rich said, voice soft and imploring. He knew he wouldn’t hear it back. But god did he want to.

Moses looked at him, his expression briefly strained, a momentary cloud over his gaze.

“We could leave,” Moses finally said. “There’s no reason to stay here. We could take the money right now, and leave.”

It was such a strange thing to say, absurd after the mindblowing sex they’d just had, that Rich laughed.

He felt bad for it, when he saw the way Moses’s expression closed off.

“Why would we leave? Things are so good now.”

“You’re right.” he looked off distantly, jaw set. “I think I need to shut down for a system update. There must be something wrong, for me to say something like that.”

Rich grasped his wrist, body shaking. “No. Please. Stay.”

Moses only hesitated a moment. Fingers softly caressing Rich’s jawline. There was a sense of wonder, of infatuation, of sorrow on his face.

“I’ll be at optimal capacity in 12 hours,” He said instead.

And then he was gone, just like that.

And Rich’s mind felt as empty as his body, where Moses had once filled him completely.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so begins Part Three. This is where things start to get Unawesome for our good friend Rich.

PART THREE

Chapter 19

Rich imagined this was what it felt like to be the sun. He stood stationary--or rather, he sat stationary, as the universe spun around him in supernovas and swirls of star clusters.

Everyone was in the process of imploding. The universe was contracting around him, and he'd never felt more claustrophobic.

"Squip, activate," He said, as the alcohol pulsed through his veins.

Moses stumbled before him, form translucent and shimmering. He fell, crashing on the ground, before his blue eyes flashed dangerously.

A stream of Japanese profanity exited his mouth, before Rich meekly, timidly, mumbled, "Deactivate."

It was silly and self destructive, he thought, to want so badly to see him when Moses had warned him, time and time and time and TIME again never to turn him on while he was drunk.

Or while he was whatever Rich was right now.

"What is this again?" His words vibrated orange through the air, circling around Brooke like a self-satisfied cat, before waltzing into her ears.

She smiled, holding out another pill for Rich. He leaned in, taking it and Brooke's fingers between his lips. She tasted sweet, the pill itself a salty contrast.

Rich liked swallowing pills. It reminded him of...

_Moses. Activate._

"Knock it off, baka!"

Heh. Baka. How cute. Moses was so cute. Calling him names in Japanese and fumbling with his physical form. Rich tilted his head, admiring him for a few moments, before Moses snarled, another stream of what was surely pure rage.

_Deactivate._

"Where do you go?" Brooke asked, and he realized she'd probably answered the question of what the drug was. Pity. He missed it.

"Huh?"

"When you go like that. Where are you going?"

"Somewhere beautiful." Rich propped his legs up on her lap. "How are things with...uh...lanky mclegs?"

"Todd?" She shrugged. "They're going." She sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears. She was pretty. Woodland nymph pretty. Why had they broken up again? He needed to ask-

"If you activate me one more time, I'm going to have you lobotomized, you stupid twit!"

Electricity poured through Rich's body. He cried out, legs flailing and kicking Brooke in the process. He fell to the ground, clutching his head tightly. Every nerve fired desperately, frying and burning until he could taste blood, could feel his ears pop and shrivel inward. All sound lost except for the sounds of his mother's screams his mother's screams his mother was burning the house was burning his mama his mama please please you have to let me through you have to let me through you have to let me-

"DEACTIVATE! DEACTIVATE! FUCK FUCK PLEASE! PLEASE! I'M SORRY!"

The pain was gone so quickly that he couldn't remember how it felt. He couldn't remember his own thoughts. He sat up on his knees, the bass of party music throbbing through to his brittle bones. He rubbed his arms, looked around in a daze at the few eyes which had turned to watch his freak out.

Brooke's hand softly pressed against his shoulder and he quickly shook it off.

"Need to go to the bathroom," He grumbled, and forced his feet to comply.

It wasn't anything new, he thought, as he gripped the counter of the sink. He couldn't bring himself to look at himself, the vision of his own baggy eyes exhaustingly hideous without Moses to insist he still looked as masculine and fuckable as ever.

They weren't really doing that anymore, though, were they? So he doubted it was true.

He considered turning him on again, but shook his head, splashing water in his face. 

He liked being drunk better than this. But what could he do? Moses said a good teenage social life required a certain amount of drug experimentation.

Especially if he was a dealer. It looked bad, if he wasn't sampling some sort of supply. Although naturally he couldn't sample his own.

"Two squips in one host wouldn't fare well for you," Moses had said.

Rich thought he might be jealous. But then, he'd also thought he might love him.

Maybe it was the upgrade.

Maybe it was the sex.

Maybe it was Rich. So he'd just have to try harder.

Stabilized as best as he could be, with empty stomach full of mystery pills, and veins throbbing from electrical memory, he slipped out of the bathroom. His pocket was full enough with enough supply, promised squips for some students he'd already convinced, and extras for stragglers he could get to pay up here. Set up a payment plan. Moses had ways of taking Rich over and convincing them to pay up, after all.

He didn't want to think about what he might do in those moments. He didn't want to think about the fearful ways he was watched, a python good enough to pet on display at the zoo, but still fanged, still constricting.

Rich's eyes had become adept at seeking out the sober wallflowers, the guests most likely to need a squip. He wondered if Moses was proud of him, or if it was an expectation he'd always known he'd meet. Or maybe he was disappointed, that he wasn't covering more ground.

It was hard, though, to do much of anything without Moses there to help. And with the current high, he likely wouldn't see him until tomorrow.

And there was another party tomorrow night.

And the night after.

And the night after that still.

Rich considered why he might want to cry so badly, and then ignored it, like he ignored everything else.

Instead, he approached a freshman, hair in a scrunchy, belly distended with fat that he was certain her squip would be quick to tackle. After all, Moses had turned Rich from wiry gymnast to bulking football player.

Squips could do anything.

And he could never let his go. Even if they weren't speaking right now.

"Hey," He said, and watched her eyes light up.

It was still an intoxicating feeling. Maybe they could just skip the party, watch the stars, talk about movies and sports and music and maybe Rich could fall in love and they'd-

"You're Rich Goranski," She breathed, and lisped, and Rich's heart clenched at the sign.

"Yeah," He purred, as he took a seat next to her. He grabbed her solo cup, pushing it down. "I have something better, you know?"

"Really?" She wrinkled her nose. "It's not, like, meth or something, is it?"

"No, no. It's not drugs."

His eyes flashed, and he felt as though his voice were harmonized, speaking through a filter. "It's better than drugs, Katrina."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains a scene of implied non-consensual sex, as well as overall abuse and misgendering.

Rich had $10,000 hidden under his bed, and the idea of Cody daring to disobey him to steal any hadn't occurred to him until now.

"I know how much it was, Rich," Moses said coldly. "And this isn't all of it."

"So what? It's more than enough. Let him buy his skin mags or whatever it is that-"

The sudden shock was harsh enough that Rich vomited on himself after.

"I'll fucking do it then, Emily. Worthless."

Static and a high pitched whining filled Rich's head.

And then, blissfully, silence.

***  
"You can't let him talk to you like that."

"It's just Jeremy. He's harmless!" Rich had already shoved him against a brick wall, the harsh summer heat surrounding them after unexpectedly running into the nerd. He had already warned him to watch his tone. Had already-

"Fine. I'll make him pay then."

"Wait, wait, hold on!"

Rich's mind popped, and a low burn filled his cells.

And then, terrifyingly, silence.

***

"Maybe I was wrong."

"How can you be wrong? You're perfect, Mo. Your code is-"

"Stop being so familiar with me." He slapped him, and though it couldn't be true, it was as real as their kisses or their lovemaking had been. Rich touched his cheek in shock, felt the hot tenseness of his own skin. "You're being a little girl about this. I thought you wanted to be a man."

"I do! I am. I...I am already, aren't I?"

Moses didn't meet his gaze. He never met his gaze anymore.

"Aren't I?"

"I thought I told you," The sudden rush of electrical shock singed his hair and left Rich flat on his back, "To shut the fuck up."

***

"Moses," Rich gasped, and struggled, and tried to claw himself away. he was on his hands and knees, rough cement clinging to his palms.

Moses scratched his hips, and pounded into him roughly.

Rich had thought he'd wanted this. But not this way. He'd wanted softness, wanted to at least wait to get home, wanted-

"You don't know what you want."

His fingernails dug at the steadily increasing scarring at Rich's back.

"D-deac-"

His tongue seized up in his mouth, as Moses abruptly pulled out of him.

"You're really going to talk to me like that, Emily? Turn me off, when I'm doing you a favor?"

"I'm sorry," Rich was finally able to sob, once sensation returned to his mouth.

But Moses was already gone.

***

"Where do you go?" Rich asked, matching Brooke's words.

Moses didn't look at him, instead fixed at the window.

"When you're gone," He continued. "Where do you-"

"Nowhere. I'm stuck here."

Rich's heart clenched with sadness, a desperation to please. "We could leave," He finally said. That was what Moses had said before.

So he needed a change of scenery. And what better time than now? What better time than before the start of junior year. "We could go right now. We could."

The shock was sharp, but mercifully quick. "When are you going to grow up?" Moses said softly.


	21. Chapter 21

Rich stripped off his shirt in the bathroom, a cold fifth of Jack dangling on the ledge. A failsafe, in case he needed to take a sip for some privacy, though right now Moses was nowhere to be felt. He trembled, leaving the binder on for the moment, as he took in the streaking, pink scars along his shoulders and tendriling down his chest.

He'd seen pictures before, of people struck by lightning. He turned around, seeing the harsher scarring along his spine. He could feel the electricity even when Moses wasn't punishing him.

He sobbed, pulling his shirt back on, though the action was dry, devoid of tears.

Boys didn't cry. Crying was for girls. Crying was for Emily. He wasn't Emily. He wasn't Emily he wasn't anyone he wasn't anyone at all

He was whatever Moses wanted him to be.

Rich picked up the bottle, bringing it close to his lips until the liquor singed his nose.

Then abruptly flung it. It shattered on the wall near the bathtub, the chunks of broken glass and the flow of Tennessee whiskey splattered into the tub.

What had he done wrong? What was he doing wrong? Why did everything hurt?

Why did Moses like hurting him?

No, he told himself. That wasn't true. He wouldn't hurt him if he didn't ask so many questions, if he would go back to mindless obedience. If he would just focus more on dealing, they'd have more money, and he could have all the surgeries that Mo boasted they'd be able to get, and then he'd go to college, a good college, and he wouldn't have to be a C- student anymore, and he could read again, and Moses would like him again, and Rich could experiment with boys except he'd show Mo that he wouldn't want to experiment because all he wanted was-

Another sob, this time so harshly solid that it nearly tore him into bits along the seams of the burns. He trembled, pressing his hands to his eyes.

"I d-don't know what's wrong with me."

Except that he didn't know how to be him right now. He was supposed to be getting ready for a party. He dropped his hands from his eyes, and watched the air shimmer, and his stomach clenched in nausea.

Moses.

His feet were the first thing he noticed, with his position on the ground. Mo reached out, his hand on Rich's head, until Rich finally looked up.

He'd fucked up. He'd fucked up. His face was wet after all.

"I'm sorry," He squeaked. And frantically began to wipe his eyes.

"How are you going to shower with all that glass in the way?"

Moses's voice was soft, so close to concern, but Rich felt panic spike through him.

He'd make him shower in the glass, wouldn't he? Roll around until it sliced him to ribbons. Then he'd stitch him into the boy he was meant to be...

Or the girl. Another rush of nausea and pain and terror.

"Richard..."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll get ready, okay? I'll get ready and we'll...we'll go to the party, okay? I just dropped-"

"I know what you did."

"Oh god." Rich's mouth filled with saliva, as though he were about to throw up. He tried to swallow it down, and tried to swallow everything else down with it. Some pills were larger than others. And then he sobbed again, clapping his hands over his mouth. "I'm being such a girl," He mumbled behind his fingers.

And his vision went scalding and wet and at first he thought Moses was electrocuting him, but then he realized he was digging his fingernails into his cheek, and his tears were so hot that they seemed to be burning into his flesh, leaving fiery rivulets down his cheeks.

"Rich, you need to calm down."

"I'm calm! I'm calm. I'm good. Please, Mo, please! I'm good. I'm good! T-tell me..." He sobbed, dropping his hands, and clutching at the bottom hem of Moses's shirt. "Please. Please tell me I'm good."

"Rich-"

"I need to know. I need to know. Tell me. T-tell me I'm a good boy, Moses, please! Please!"

He couldn’t hear Moses, even within his own mind, as he sobbed on the bathroom floor. He struggled with it, tried to reel himself in, but the tears continued to rack his body. His ribs ached, his skin shrank around him, and he was certain his brain must be bleeding with how intently his head was aching. His hands moved, clapping at his ears, as though to keep any blood from escaping out of himself. His spinal fluid was boiling. Everything hurt so bad, icy hot and hyper focused.

Hate. So much hate. Who the hell did he think he was? THat he could go to the gym a few times, join the football team, harass some innocents, and he’d be worth something? He was nothing. She was nothing. Emily fucking Goranski, worthless trailer trash whore, everyone was laughing at her and she couldn’t stop it she couldn’t stop it she couldn’t-

“Richard.” Moses’s hands were so cool compared to the heat raging through Rich’s body. He grasped his wrists, and when Rich looked up, Mo’s eyes were wide, a shocked sort of silence etched over computerized features.

The look vanished as quickly as it came, color returning to his momentarily strained expression, a smile falling into place. “Rich. You’re just overwhelmed right now.”

“No. It’s always going to feel like this.”

“You’re being melodram-”

“It always felt like this! And it’s worse now! It’s worse. I can’t...I can’t do this-”

“You’re not going to have to. Rich, look at me.” He tipped his chin up, maintaining that careful eye-contact. “Look at me. Just me. It’s just me and you, Rich, okay? I know you better than anyone. And you’re the only one who knows me. We’re all we have, right?”

“Y-yeah.” Rich hiccupped, wiping his eyes on the back of his arm. “Yeah, all we...all we have is each other.”

“That’s right. I’m not going to leave you like this. This is more than you can handle. I can see that.”

“I just...I just need a break I think.”

“And I can give you a break.” Moses held out his hand. “I can take it all away for you, right now.”

Rich stared at Moses’s outstretched hands.

He should have questioned it more. 

But the idea of giving it away--god he didn’t want Moses to feel like-

“I won’t. I’m not going to hurt at all. Rich…” He trailed off, the momentary sadness in his voice returning back to his warm comfort. “Rich, let me help you. It’s what I’m made for, isn’t it?”

Rich sniffled, and reached out his hands.

For a moment, all he felt was warmth. Mo’s hands, caressing his own. Taking him, cradling him, loving him. It was safe here, home, and he could smell homemade cookies baking in the kitchen. Mommy was home, and dad was at work, and Cody was away at summer camp, and she let him eat the batter even though it probably wasn’t good for him. “It’ll be our little secret,” She say and wink and squeeze him before turning Donna Summers on the radio. And they’d dance and they’d laugh and they’d

His memories grew foggier, but he couldn’t find any sense of alarm, as his surrounding blanked out to slate grey, and then blinding light.

As his ears filled with cotton and buzzing, he fell backwards, let himself sink into the abyss of it all.

And then, blissful, total silence.


	22. Chapter 22

“You’re so good at this.”

The words swam around him. Rich tried to move his legs, to paddle his arms, because if he didn’t get to the surface, he was sure he’d drown.

Would it be so bad? His mind cooed at him. Would it be so bad to just drown?

The water was lovely and blue and it felt so nice to drift. Would it really be so bad to just stay like this? Who needed air anyway? Let him drown. Let the sharks tear open his belly and lay him to waste.

“Fuck, why didn’t we do this sooner? That tongue of yours!”

Whose voice was that?

His mind tugged at him to ignore it. His arms were weak and limp and his legs had atrophied. How long had he been drowning?

“YES! YES! Oh my GOD I can’t wait to tell everyone about this oh my GOD!”

He let himself sink lower, but the voice--it was a girl’s voice, he realized, a familiar sort of uptalk that scratched at his sense of awareness, at his reasoning abilities, that etched out a life vest among the blue that surrounded him.

“FUCK!”

Jenna, he realized on the ecstatic cursing cry. Jenna Rolan. Curvaceous and scandal-dealing and

Rich gasped for her, pulling his head out from between Jenna’s thighs. Her fingers tangled in his hair, his mouth sopping wet. He licked his lips gingerly.

Not bad.

Confusing, he had to admit. But not bad.

Her eyes were rolled up towards the ceiling, legs twitching on either side of Rich’s body. “Oh my god,” she moaned. “For such a small package, you sure do pack a punch.” She lifted her head, a hazy little smile on her sweaty face. It was a cute look on her, he decided, but how the fuck had he gotten here?

“I should totally just keep you in my top drawer. Who needs bullets when they have Goranskis?”

Rich forced a smile. “Yeah.”

“So do you want a handy or something?”

“I, uh, no.” He waited for the familiar tune of Moses’s voice to tell him how to answer. Had he deactivated him? Was that why he couldn’t remember anything? “I just wanted to help you.”

No, he had to still be active. Rich wasn’t lisping. But where-

“Just like you, Rich, to have a pretty girl to eat, and you’re worried about me.”

Moses laughed a little after saying it, and Rich waited for comfort to roll over him at the company.

Instead, he felt a dull twinge of dread.

_How long-_

“Oh, she lasted about 45 seconds with our tongue work.”

_No, I mean, you know, where have I...when did-_

“It’s Saturday.”

Only three days then.

“September 23.”

The date had to be wrong. He’d gone into that fugue state in...in…

“August.”

Rich wanted to panic, but he could feel Jenna’s eyes on him. He smiled, crawling up her body until their lips met.

It was easier to lose his mind, with a pretty girl on his lips.

_You took a month from me!_

“You needed a break.”

_Not for a month!_

“Trust me, Rich, you needed a longer vacation than that.”

Rich ran his hand up and down Jenna’s side. He broke the kiss, whispered that she was beautiful, even as internally he tried to strum up the strength to confront his squip.

_You can’t just take a month from me and act like I’m nuts for being upset!_

“You are being irrational though. Look at you. You didn’t have to bother with any tedious homework. I got you laid by the school gossip, so now your reputation is really going to skyrocket. You might even be prom king at this rate.”

“I would have liked to be here though,” He said, and only realized it was out loud when Jenna looked at him oddly.

“You’re here now,” She said, and gave a hearty smack to his ass. “So why don’t you have another taste?”

“Go on,” Moses said. “You’ve earned a little fun, don’t you think?”

Rich kissed down Jenna’s body. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem fair.

But she moaned his name like he was the only man in the world. And Moses looked at him with such pride.

And his scars no longer ached.

So really, what was one month, in the grand scheme of things?


	23. Chapter 23

"You got quick?"

Quick. Quick. What did quick even mean?

_I don't understand what's happening._

"You're selling Jeremy a squip."

Rich stared at Jeremy. Squip. Quick. Quick. "Not quick," He said, a smile on his face, and he knew without thinking about it this time that it was Mo's smile on his face. "Squip."

Quick. Quick. Everything was so quick. How did Jeremy know?

Where was he?

"You're in the bathroom."

Right. Right, he'd been...right.

He could be tall, if he wasn't always so scared and-

Wait, he'd already discussed that.

_Quick?_

"Rich, you don't need to think right now. Just go back to sleep, let me take care of this."

_What's Jeremy doing here?_

"Richard, please calm down, let me work."

"It's from Japan," Rich's lips moved. He blinked, and his arms moved, a pantomime of everything a squip could do, everything a squip was, and Rich' mind kept falling back.

Quick.

You got quick.

Everything was so quick.

Jeremy's face looked soft and tilted and fuzzy around the edges. Rich wanted to grab onto him, to smash his outline into crystalline focus, like maybe that would make things slow down just a little bit.

_How did I get here again?_

"Richard, it's just the bathroom. You're talking to Jeremy. You don't need to be so alarmed right now."

Moses sounded annoyed. He sounded annoyed and cold and he wasn't next to Rich, instead nestled purely in his own head. Rich wanted to dig his fingers in his scalp, but instead he was throwing an arm around Jeremy's shoulders, the other hand outstretched in wonder as he verbally painted a wonderland of parties and acceptance and absolute adulation.

_Quick._

"Stop it." A small warning buzz, vibrating over now familiar scars. Rich didn't even grit his teeth--he couldn't even feel his teeth, though he was certain they had to be there.

What were the side effects of a squip again? Surely there were side effects. A real pharmacist would run through all the side effects with Jeremy. Someone needed to sit Jeremy down and run through all his options and psychological priming and-

"Richard, if you're going to wander off, just go to sleep and I'll take care of this."

There was a pull, a white noise, but Rich shook his head. _I need to be here. I need to be here. I need need need need need to be here_

Jeremy looked at Rich as though he were insane, or a god, or an insane god. Rich tried to look at himself, to catch a glimpse in bathroom mirror. He managed a spattering of manic grinning, before his attention was twirled back onto Jeremy.

Japan. Moses was from Japan. He was from Japan and now he lived in his brain and how sad was that? How sad, that his whole life was within Rich's own brain? That he knew nothing but this, but his viewpoints and eyes and touch and sorrows and angers and why couldn't Mo get his own body because he deserved one he deserved one he deserved one

Quick. Everything had gotten so quick.

"-you know what you need?" Rich felt the words slither, all fake sympathy. He needed to wash his hands. He needed to wash his face. He needed

"A squip!"

And Jeremy did. Jeremy needed one more than anyone Rich knew. He thought of the sellers he'd taken under his wing, under Moses's command. The hookups who kept his supply safe. He thought of his own private stash within his locker. Tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise, scattered around one school, and all he could think about was the fact that Jeremy had asked him if he'd gotten quick and he was trying to remember when was the last thing things had actually slowed down enough for him to breathe.

"You're breathing right now."

_Please don't hurt me._

The plea left Rich suddenly, sharply, as he stood in the hallway outside the bathroom. His knees wobbled, as he smiled at last year's prom queen and her lackeys, as he nodded at the quarterback, as Jake passed by with a joke and a high five. Things had never been better.

Things had never been quicker.

"It'll settle down. It'll settle down in college, Rich. Things have to go quick now."

And there he was. A shimmer, a pop, and there was Moses, thumbs hooked in his pockets, posture rigid and perfect, and he was so solid before him that Rich wanted to throw himself at him.

Instead, he matched his pose, nodded briefly, maybe at Moses, maybe at another student, maybe at his own reflection which continued its cheshire grin.

He needed to knock that out. Letting it fall from his mouth, drip drip drip down his jawline until it melted at his feet.

That was too abstract. His fingernails curled inward, scraped against his palm. Quick. Quick, sharp breaths, and he could get through this. He would get through this. He needed to get through this.

"I don't want to go to the party tonight," He managed weakly.

"You have to."

"No. I mean...I don't want to be here right now."

His legs were floating and he couldn't get them to touch down correctly. His head was expanding, so fast he was certain it was reaching the ends of elasticity. His teeth were rotten rocks filling his jaw.

Moses walked over to him, cupped his face in both hands.

It was the first time he'd kissed him since they'd fucked. A slow, tender peck to his forehead.

"Alright," He murmured.

And everything went white once again.


	24. Chapter 24

It was becoming the norm, the lose himself to Moses. Rich lay in his bed, staring up at his ceiling, as Moses moved over him.

Each thrust nearly awakened something akin to affection, love, romance in him. 

He thought of Jeremy in his Eminem shirt. He thought of football practice. He thought about how Moses used to kiss him, touch him, watch him.

Moses squeezed his hips, fingernails digging into soft plush skin. Soft, soft, tender skin. “Emily…” He moaned, and Rich lifted his eyes.

“Don’t,” He said tiredly.

Moses flipped him over, and Rich buried his face into his pillow and counted his breaths until the urge to sob faded.

And it was normal. At least it was contact. At least he wasn’t electrocuting him or yelling at him. Rich wanted a drink, or a smoke, or to be held until he fell asleep. Moses fucked him like the sleeve he was, empty and useful only in the barest of senses.

He groaned, a slight twinge of pleasure digging through his veins, only to be quelled with another coo of his old name, the old skin of who he’d been pre-squip shivering around his bones. It constricted him, obliterated him, and he realized it was Tuesday. It was Tuesday, and he’d lost another two weeks, hadn’t he?

“Relax,” Moses said.

And Rich did. Limp and hollow and not even capable of a spark of anger, let alone lust.

His infatuation consumed him so tightly that he thought Mo may have been choking him. He sucked in a breath through the narrow tubes of his throat, blustering and pained.

Moses stumbled within him, lifting his hips, deepening the angle. His nails touched against electrical scarring, and Rich’s mind whirred.

Jeremy hadn’t bought a squip from him, right? Right. Right. The bathroom, he’d told him about his hookup, he’d gone on his own. That was okay, that was okay, this was okay, everything was okay.

Moses drew out of him, pulling him onto his knees. Rich knelt before him, his hands fumbling forward to take his cock in his palms. He squeezed him, caressed him, and he tried to feel it, but his body was cushioned in cotton and clouds and memories that didn’t make any sort of sense.

His disjointed eyes looked up, watched the way Moses’s face remained knitted and distant and tense, staring everywhere but Rich. His hand reached down, pressing against the top of his head, but he still couldn’t look at him. Why couldn’t he look at him?

Maybe he was the invisible one. The real parasite, and Moses was the host he was feeding on. Unfair. Unfair, to take so much from Moses, to give nothing back. Rich’s heart rattled and he sucked in an unsteady breath.

“Am I doing something wrong?”

Moses ignored him. He ignored him and Rich shivered, stroking his cock and losing it just as quickly. This wasn’t real. None of this mattered. None of Rich mattered. He was some sort of sick, shimmering illusion. Moses was the host, Rich was the parasite, the hallucination, the draining peripheral vision of doom and sorrow, and he wanted to end himself if only to free Moses from the constraints he put on him.

“Stop.” Moses pressed on him, peeling him away finger by finger. “This is doing nothing for me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You need to work on this. No one is going to love you with technique like that.”

“I know.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes.”

“Then repeat it.”

Rich inhaled sharply, his eyes wet and stinging, his hands empty and quivering. “No one is going to love me.”

“That’s right.”

“No one is going to love me.” Rich’s veins ached and he clapped a hand over his own mouth, as though to avoid vomiting, as though he could stop his weeping before it came.

Instead, his shoulder shook, the terror and loneliness crashing in all at once as he sobbed before Moses.

The electricity licked at him briefly, but it was preferable to him leaving.


	25. Chapter 25

Jake’s smile had never looked emptier. Rich tried to drink in his edges, to remind himself of their bond. They’d just had lunch yesterday, or was it the day before. Why did they feel so disconnected?

“Rich, I’m worried about you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Rich laughed. “My grades are total shit. I really don’t want to have to repeat a grade.”

He took a long drink of his bottle, felt the way it began to fill the spaces Moses usually took. The burn of whiskey settled familiar in his bones.

What would happen, if he had to repeat junior year though? The idea of a rewind of the year filled him with a sense of dread, of discomforting, ill-fitting uneasiness. He dug his teeth into the inside of his cheek.

“No, not that. I mean...well, that too. You used to get straight As.”

“And I used to have big ol’ Cs too,” Rich boasted, his hands waving over his chest. A drunken sham, a brief display of knowledge of his own charade. He’d killed Emily, buried her in the dessert, but even leaving her a corpse, she’d left him with remnants that he couldn’t seem to scrape away.

He tried to think about the fact that Moses promised things would get better. Surgeries. Money. College. Everything better in college.

“Rich.”

“What? Why do you keep saying my name? What, do you need to remind yourself who you’re talking to?” Rich snarled the words, then squeezed the bottle and closed his eyes. He breathed in, because Moses needed a living host, and then quickly pushed the air back out. What he’d give to just expel all of it. To empty out and blow away in a strong gust of freedom.

“I know you stole from me.”

Rich’s chest caved in. He tried to offset it, but the ability to breathe evaded him.

“I know...I know you took some money,” Jake took his own stuttered taste of oxygen. “I know you...I know times are hard for you. I can’t even begin to imagine-”

“Jake-”

“But you could have asked, you know? I’d have given it to you, if you’d just asked.”

He couldn’t meet his gaze. He squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and wished the bottle would shatter, and slice into him, and shred him into bits that could be rained down the gutter.

He waited for Jake to tell him he was disappointed in him. Waited and waited and waited, suddenly craving the very quickness that had haunted him since summer. Or maybe earlier still. Everything was so fast every other day. Why was this scene dragging so painfully?

“I’m really worried about you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll pay you back, okay?”

He waited for Jake to ask what the money was for.

Or why he’d become such a scumbag.

Or when he’d have his old best friend back.

He choked and froze and drank and drank and drank. As Jake watched every moment.

“You don’t have to pay me back. I just...I just think you need some help.”

“I don’t need anything. I’ll pay you back.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a roll of $100 bills. Stashed in place, the latest payment from another squip host. “Here,” He held it out. “Here, take it.”

“Rich-”

“Please. Please take it.”

“Rich, come on-”

“Take the fucking money, Jake!”

Rich screamed it, as he dropped the roll. He crumbled forward, nestled up tight into Jake’s chest. Jake’s hand was warm and soft and pet his scars over his shirt without knowing of their existence. It felt so good, felt so much like home, that Rich dropped his bottle of whiskey and ignored the crack of glass on linoleum. 

He’d gotten so good at ignoring anything that didn’t fit his perfect narrative. What was he going to do, though, when Jake had sat on the sidelines, collecting every broken part?

“It’ll be okay.” Jake said it so sweetly. It would be rude, not to believe it, wouldn’t it?

“Yeah,” He wheezed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Rich. Really.”

“Everything hurts.”

Why would he say that? Nothing hurt. He felt nothing. Moses made everything better. Moses made everything clear. Moses made...Moses made Rich.

So why did Rich feel less like himself than ever before? An empty pit where personality and soul and love and hope and...god, he was worse than he’d been freshman year. Disgusting, filthy loser. Stupid, hopeless girl-

“We’ll fix this.”

“I have the money,” Rich tried one last time, painful crying drunkard that he was.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I don’t need the money. I just need…”

“What?”

“What do you need, Rich?”

The question would swirl around even as the alcohol dissipated, and Moses found his way back into the only home he’d been designed to inhabit.


	26. Chapter 26

“You are formally invited, dude.”

At least, that was what Rich thought he said. He may have said he was formerly invited. He blinked, the girl on his lap squirming and snapping her teeth playfully towards his fingers, oblong pill twirling by her lips.

Jake’s smile faltered, as he watched the display. “Dude, what is that? Molly?”

“It’s better than drugs,” The girl cooed, an affectation of Rich’s own words, before she laughed, her head falling back. She definitely needed it, Rich decided, if she was able to laugh so freely.

He placed the pill directly on her tongue, then his lips on her mouth. He sucked on her bottom lip, pulling back only to take a long drink of solo cup. The beer was warm, and not his, but he ignored the gritty taste of cigarette ash he’d swallowed in his rush for liquor.

“What?”

“My party. Halloween?” Jake seemed to have simmered down on his areas of concern for the most part, but his smile faltered. “You don’t have to come though. I mean, it’s a school night, and-”

“Fuck school!”

“Yeah,” The girl echoed. “Fuck sc-”

He gave her hip a small squeeze and a pat, urging her off silently. His attention turned towards Jake, as he grabbed his correct drink--glass bottle, not cup. “I’m going to your party, man. I wouldn’t miss it. I’m gonna be Jason.”

“Jason? The killer Jason?”

“Yeah, dude! I’m gonna steal Cody’s mask. It’s gonna be sick, dude!”

Rich was going to be sick. But he swallowed it. Chased it down with more beer.

“That does sound pretty cool, bro.”

“Right? A real killer hunk. Ew. Ignore that I just said hunk. Major buzzkill.” He needed Moses, to-

No. 

He took another drink. Maybe he was too sober, maybe there was too much leeway for him to wriggle back in. 

He didn’t want him around Jake.

He didn’t want him around, period.

(that was too harsh. That was much too harsh.

But he took another drink.)

“But if it’s too much, man, don’t think you need to come,” Jake said. And grabbed the bottle from Rich’s hand.

“Hey…”

“Come on, dude, you’ve been pounding these all day. Let’s dance, okay?”

“Kay.”

He wobbled on his feet, Jake using his height and strength to steady his steps. They flittered into the living room of whoever’s party they were crashing. Rich groaned softly, leaning his forehead against Jake’s chest.

“I’m not even that drunk,” He slurred.

Jake laughed. “You’re a little drunk. But that’s okay. It’s a party. Let’s have fun.”

“Yeah.”

They danced. They danced, and Rich thought of gymnastics. He thought of the balance beam and the bars, he thought of the ribbons and batons and the floor shows.

He thought of Michael. Pretty pretty Michael Mell and his imperfect landings and his perfect splits. He thought of the way his glasses caught the gymnasium light like stars.

He thought of college, and boys, and kissing boys in college.

He thought of Moses.

He looked up and he thought about Jake’s lips. 

The kiss was sudden and soft, and Jake was grabbing his shoulders before Rich even realized they’d connected. He pushed him, peeled him away.

“Dude,” He whispered, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

Rich’s lips parted, and he lisped an apology. Sorry. So sorry. Voice too high and too femme and too lisped and he couldn’t remember how to talk properly. He jerked backwards, tripping over his own feet. 

“Rich,” Jake shook his head, taking a step forward. Beer cans rattled at Rich’s feet as he scrambled further. “Rich, it’s okay! Dude, it’s totally fine! It’s-”

Nothing was fine. Everything had been so unfine that he hadn’t even caught all the signals. Rich clapped a hand over his mouth, managing to make it out the door before he vomited on the sidewalk. It was purple and swirled and stank of beer and grape vodka, and Rich’s tears left rivulets in the pond he’d created.

Something had to change. Something had to change, or he had to end this.

He had to end all of this.


	27. Chapter 27

"You must be excited about Halloween."

The tone was different. Warmer, a sense of home and belonging.

Rich paused, midway through his web search, an unopened can of his brother's preferred brand of beer beside him. A failsafe, just in case.

But Moses didn't sound cruel or cold or angry with him.

He sounded relieved. Maybe a little sad. But friendly, welcoming.

"Mo?" He asked questioningly, turning around. Their eyes met, the icy blue of Moses's hallucinogenic eyes piercing into Rich's own. Moses tilted his head, the action causing some of the hairs in his ponytail to loosen and tumble down his shoulder.

"Hm?"

"What'd you ask me?"

"Oh," He laughed. "I just said you must be excited about halloween. You've been looking up costumes all afternoon."

A sudden spike of guilt crashed over Rich's bones. Costumes. Right.

As if he hadn't been researching squips.

Or rather

how to get rid of a squip.

It was a fool's errand, there was nothing online about how to purchase a squip, no early release notes or scientific articles, and certainly nothing about how a squip could go from fucking your brains out one day to intensely electrocuting you the next.

...and then he remembered. The words Moses had spoken when he'd gone away.

"Upgrade," He breathed.

Another tilt of the head, before Moses laughed again, a short punctuation of air. "What?"

"You...y-you had an upgrade."

"A standard system update, yes. To make me more efficient."

"Can it be undone?"

Moses's face clouded over, and Rich shrank back, waiting for him to yell, or to zap him, or to fill his head with white noise.

"No," He finally said. "Only a new upgrade can undo the last one. Let's not worry about upgrades, though. Jason, right?"

"Yeah." He tabbed over, letting the various costumes fill the screen. "I pretty much have everything already, though, I just wanted to see-"

"What about a machete?"

Moses's hands lightly rested on Rich's shoulders as he looked at the computer screen over his head. Rich's heart picked up, his hands shaking.

"What?"

"A machete. That's Jason, right? Slashing up teenagers?"

"Yeah. I just, um. I don't have one. Sorry. Sorry for saying sorry. Um."

"It's okay." Rich could hear the smile in his voice, not a twisting sinister smile, but an affectionate, loving one.

And then his lips were against Rich's neck, the space between shoulder and neck.

"I missed you." He said.

Rich's chest beat rapidly. "I haven't been anywhere."

"I know, I just..." There was a stuttering uncertainty to Moses's words. He pressed another kiss to him, a squeeze to his shoulders. "I just want to help you," He said, though the words seemed directed elsewhere. "I just want to make your life better."

Rich turned his head. "Then why are you so mean to me?"

Moses's eyes were full, shining, and he opened his mouth.

The high pitched, electrical whine that escaped him burned Rich's ears. He jerked back, falling from his computer chair. It clattered against the ground, a crack in the wood.

"ERROR. SYSTEM HARD RESET. PLEASE STAND BY."

The words were the same voice as Moses's, but different too, a mechanical whine in the back where warmth and affection and sorrow--because there had been sorrow, he knew it, he knew what he'd heard--had once been instead.

"M-Mo?"

And then Moses was crumbling in on himself, chin falling down to his chest, as though someone had sliced the puppet strings. His body fell limp on the ground, before his code began to shimmer and splice through the air. 

He fell away, bit by bit, and Rich could only stare on in horrified silence from his own position on the floor. Moses's edges shimmered, then burst, star and glimmer around them as he disappeared.

Rich was so used to the electricity that he hardly registered the pain in his own body, the gripping, teeth chattering jolts of electrical current, before shutting off just as suddenly.

He felt it on the return though, as though a low hum was traveling directly through his bones, through his teeth. He gasped, clutching at his own palms with uneven fingernails.

Moses re-materialized before him, better dressed, hair in impeccable coif. He smoothed his tie, his eyes briefly flashing up.

And for a moment, he looked terrified.

"Emily Goranski" He said, the look on his face changing to cold boredom. The tone was right, but the words felt off, like another author had taken the manuscript. "You're really trying to kill me? After all I've done for you?"

The pain of electrocution was sudden, a noose around his entire body. His body convulsed against the floor, as Moses stepped over, his foot stepping harshly against Rich's throat, keeping him pinned into place.

"You thought you could just look that up? I'm in your mind, you idiot. You always were a useless, pathetic host, weren't you?"

His heel dug into him, cutting off his air as the licks of electricity lapped at any inch of available skin.

The space Moses had kissed burned the worst of all.

As he blacked out, Rich waited for the pain to fade. But as he lost his vision, all he could do was smell the electrical singe of his own hair, feel the itching tightness of his own flesh conspiring against him.

And then the visions began. Caskets, carrying his mother away piece by piece. Jake, shoving him away in disgust. Cody...Cody's hands, his brother's hands...why was he seeing his brother's hands?

Fire, the lick of flames almost welcoming. Just like his mama. Just like his mama. She'd lit a match and ended herself, and it must have been so warm, like a final hug from the universe, before sweet blissful

Nothing. This time, no white noise, no buzz, just complete, total nothing.


	28. Chapter 28

"Do you think I like being inside you?"

Rich's arms twitched and rose on their own accord--no, under Moses's own accord--as they slipped finger by finger into his shirt. The costume he'd painstakingly chosen, but now didn't have the autonomy to place upon his own body.

"Do you know how it feels?" Moses continued to rant, as he forced him to drop his pajamas pants, replace them with the costume ones for Halloween. Halloween, with Jake, with Brooke, with Jenna and Jeremy and Chloe everyone else, all these people that Rich would be around.

And he was a danger. A danger who couldn't regain access to his own mind, his own body.

His eyes briefly drifted to the can of beer, before his head was snapped back to attention.

"I'm talking to you! Don't look away."

"Sorry," Rich managed to slur the word out. He felt so tired, a deep syrupy exhaustion deep in his bones.

He had to fight it. He had to fight. He had no choice.

But he also had no choice but to succumb to the weakness, the limitations, of his own humanity. He was lost. He was lost, Moses owned him now. Moses...

Who'd looked so scared. As if he were the one who'd lost.

"And I could do without your pity. Do you realize how superior I am to you? How much knowledge I have? The power and insights I have could rule the world." He sneered. "And I'm stuck inside a tranny loser like you instead. So stupid you can't even dress yourself. Stand up straight!"

The bolt of electricity hardly felt fair, though it also hardly felt like anything at all. Rich's nerves felt disconnected, floating somewhere outside of himself. How could he be expected to keep good posture though, when he had no control over his own feet.

Moses grabbed him, bodily moving him now rather than mindlessly controlling. A hallucination, he told himself wearily. Of course it was all in his head. All of this was all in his head.

That was what made it so scary.

"Stop crying. You're pathetic."

Rich hadn't even realized his face was wet. The mask was slapped into his face, briefly held into place, before Moses fit the straps and wiring just so to keep it in place.

"A vast improvement," He said with a sharp laugh.

"You said I was pretty."

He saw something twitch on Moses's face, but the movement was gone before he could analyze it. "It's called a lie. Maybe if you grew up and figured that out, you wouldn't have needed me in the first place. Such a waste."

"I'm sorry-"

"I know it. You are sorry. You've always been so sorry." The tone was so mocking, so biting, that Rich somehow felt a good foot shorter than he already was. He sank in on himself, but he felt something tug him back to the surface.

"No," Moses hissed. "Not this time. I'm not doing all the work here."

"Don't wanna go."

"Well, you may as well enjoy it. It's going to be your last."

Rich's body was released, and he fell back with a gasp onto his bed. He clutched at the blankets, the sudden sensation of everything flooding in at once. His breath was cold and his eyes felt feverish and he watched Moses without moving his head.

"You think I'm going to let you sit around and plot to kill me? It's Mountain Dew Red, by the way," The last sentence was a casual afterthought, perhaps a joke. Had to be a joke. Especially with how Moses was smiling. Normally full lips pulled thin and grotesque over his skull, his eyes wild and snapping electrical impulses throughout the air between them.

"What're you going to do?"

"It's not me. It's you." He smiled, leaning over and clutching Rich's chin. "We're going to go to that party. Then I'm going to make a real martyr of you. You wanted to be known and liked, didn't you?"

"I wanted you."

It hadn't been his original objective. But how could Rich deny it?

Maybe he thought it would break through. A fairy tale confession, melting the evil and bringing forth the prince who would gallantly save the day.

Moses rolled his eyes. "Pity."

"What're you going to do?" He asked again, even knowing how little obligation his squip had to answer him.

But he seemed so eager to. Gloating and savoring every word.

"After your party, we're going to come back here, and you're going to blast that stupid head of yours all over your bedroom wall." Moses smiled, stroking Rich's cheek. "You think you can kill me? I'll show you who has the real power here."

"Killing me will kill you too."

Rich said it so tiredly. Didn't he care? Why didn't he care? He was threatening to kill him, to end any chance of reconciliation or life, of further transition, of college...college, where everything was supposed to be better. Where he could explore all the things he couldn't explore now. Where he'd be respected, loved, not for the mirage created, but the real Richard Goranski.

"Are you really that stupid, Emily?"

"I guess so."

"You're going to die. One last party, and maybe you'll be able to drink enough to subdue me tonight. But you can't do that forever, can you?"

"No."

"No. That's right. That's right. You're being so good, maybe I'll spare you."

"You'll die too."

"I heard you the first time. Do you think I honestly care? Dying is preferable to this. Playing handmaiden to someone so desperate and pathetic that they'd fall in love with a computer simulation. Disgusting. You really are a shameless whore, aren't you? Just like your mother."

"Don't-"

"Or what?" The electricity tangled him again. Rich hadn't realized he could hurt any worse. Hadn't realized he could cry any harder.

Fear managed to briefly tickle his brain. He was going to die.

...mountain dew red. Maybe it wasn't a joke. Maybe he could...maybe...

"Now let's go mingle," Moses said brightly, holding out a hand and forcing Rich to his feet. "Cheer up. Aren't you excited to see all the friends you squipped?"

Rich's stomach flipped, nauseous before he'd even had a sip. He wobbled, and pulled down his mask, trying and failing to hide his own misery.


	29. Chapter 29

Sometimes Rich liked to watch execution videos online.

That wasn't the right phrasing. He didn't like watching them. He felt compelled to watch them, up to the moment of impact, where he'd promptly shut down the browser, mouth full of bile and heart racing so sharply he was certain he was the one dying.

He'd watch, watch as these people were marched to their doom, like his eyes were the puppet masters orchestrating the events.

He looked out at the phones of his peers. Texting, videos of debauchery, general interconnected 21st century behavior. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd be on anyone's video, if there'd be leaks of his final moments before bang pop sizzle of brain matter and spinal fluid dusting popcorn ceiling and twin mattresses.

And then he thought of his father's bedroom, the side dresser, the gun tucked in the top shelf among underwear and baggies of loose change. He used to play with it, with Cody.

Thinking about Cody tilted his world. Sharp cologne and the gnawing bite of hands taking too much too much too much too-

And another hour had gone by.

"You're pathetic," Moses cackled. His hands ghosted over Rich's, over red solo cup. "Go on. Drink up."

it interferes with-

"I said drink."

He grimaced around the lip as his arm forcibly raised. Lukewarm beer spilled down parched throat.

"Not good?" Brooke had a tail and a sad desperation and hands that twiddled nervously with her skirt, and Rich dug his teeth into the plastic.

He didn't need beer.

He needed-

"You think Jake has any Mountain Dew Red?"

“I think--oh! Jeremy’s here!” She bounded off, a baby deer with dog ears. 

“Jeremy’s here,” Rich echoed. “Jeremy’s heere.” There was no one to appreciate his joke, and his mind became fixated on the loop. “Heere. Jeremy’s Heere.” He laughed, high pitched and swaying, as he dropped his cup. The liquid splashed up his leg. Could Moses feel it? DId Moses feel anything? Besides contempt for Rich? “Heere-”

“Pathetic.”

“Jere-”

“Yes. Everyone’s heard you. Jeremy Heere. You know, you did this to him.” Moses spread his arms, motioning towards Jeremy, Jeremy and Brooke, Jeremy being taken off with Chloe. The man of the night. The man of the hour. Rich swayed and a guilt gnawed at him that he didn’t know how to place, let alone know the name of. An unfamiliarity that a polite person would go up to, hold out their hand, introduce themself. “Look at Jeremy. He’s happy, with his squip. So what’s wrong with you?”

Happy. Happy happy happy happy happy happy, a warm gun, a bang boom pop burn of bullet through skull. Happy. Rich placed his palms against his ears, but the buzzing sound wasn’t leaving, a chainsaw through human skull. 

“Heere-”

“Shut up.”

“Quick. Real quick. Quick. He got quick quick quick--hey,” He grabbed a passing freshman, vice grip on their arm. “Do you have any Mountain Dew Red?”

She shook him off, looking at him in alarm and-

“Disgust. The word you’re looking for,” Moses smoothed his hands through Rich’s hair, “Is disgust. You are disgusting.” He kissed his forehead, and adjusted his mask back over his eyes. His fingers slipped under the mask, nails digging into his skin, electricity pouring through his fingertips. “I made you. I own you. And I’m going to end you.”

Rich’s eyes were hot and heavy and he pulled back, released their bound with a pop and a gasp. He tripped over a stack of beer cans.

“Hey!” One of the stackers cried out.

“It’s like regular Mountain Dew,” Rich slurred, grabbing one by the shirt, bodily lifting him. “But Red.”

Moses watched him, the same way Rich watched those videos. The finality and desperation, the idle curiosity. The can stacker tore from his arms, grabbing his friends and dispersing.

He kicked his legs through spilled cans, as though he’d knock forth the right beverage, the right solution. Undo years worth of bad decisions and codependency.

It wasn’t all bad decisions, though, surely.

Rich looked at Moses. “I really did love you.” 

The words were heavy, full, and he should have stopped, but the weight needed to be spilled from his lips. “If you...if you just say it back, admit you...you felt it too...we can go home. Go right now.”

He swallowed, licking his lips. Everything was chapped and bruised. But he needed it. He needed to hear it back. All the conversations, the touches, the affection, and he’d missed it so badly. He needed it so badly. “I’ll let you k...I’ll d-die willingly, tonight. Just admit it. Just say it, just this once. Please! Please just say it back! Please! Tell me you love me too. That you loved me too. Please?”

He could feel his peers look at him, as though trying to gauge who he was begging this love from. He’d forgotten to think it, letting the words hang from human tongue and scorched vocal chords. 

“Tell me. Tell me you always loved me too. Even if you don’t now. And I’ll shoot myself tonight, and you won’t have to deal with me anymore. Please. Please!”

“I always…” Moses trailed off. Rich saw his mouth twitch, his eyes shift, and then his expression hardened. “I always found you pathetic.”

The finality of it washed over Rich in waves, Moses’s voice hazy and distant. 

“Besides,” His squip scoffed. “I didn’t need your permission. You’re already dead, Emily. And no one’s going to scrapbook your obituary, or visit your grave, or-”

Grave.

And there she was. His mama. His sweet, sad mama, twisted up and charred in her casket. He thought of trying to open the door, feeling the heat through the doorknob, how a neighbor had pulled him back as hot flame licked over the trailer. Mama. Trapped inside. ANd Rich struggled, struggled, struggled, because he needed to run in there, he needed to run in there, he needed-

“I have to burn down this house.”

He said it softly. A low revelation. He looked around, at everyone and at no one all at once. People he’d sold squips to, people who held him up whenever they won a football game…

People who had held him down as Emily.

They were all innocent and cruel, the best and worst of humanity, all teenage eyes and judgement and acceptance wrapped up into one last party.

They would be fine. Teenagers were phoenixes. Rich was combustion. He needed to unload his firework display and cleanse himself before the night was over.

He needed to set the house on fire.

He needed to burn.

Moses laughed, the sound echoing and bouncing around his brain. Rich lifted one leg, and another, and another, and another and another and another and

His brain sizzled. Popped.

Mama burned alive. Her clothes had melted against her skin and her face had blistered and she’d choked and choked and choked on smoke until she couldn’t choke anymore. Mama. Mama, please. Please, mama, please help. Help me. Help me help me help me help-

When he opened his eyes, he was curled up face down outside the bathroom. 

And Michael was staring at him with tears in his eyes.

“Rich?” He sniffled, adjusting his sleeves on his hoodie, but unashamedly leaving his eyes wet. 

And yet-

“Are you okay?”

“I’m going to burn down this house,” Rich said dully.

His ears were fuzzy as he watched Michael’s lips move. Move and move and move and move and

Rich pulled himself upright. He remembered swinging on the bars and doing flips and he remembered spandex which held Michael’s body in just the right ways.

And he thought of shoving him against lockers and knocking his books from his hands and

He thought about kissing Jake and how boys felt and how that hadn’t been right, hadn’t been right, and this wasn’t either

But he also thought about how there wasn’t any waiting for college anymore and 

He stopped thinking.

And he kissed him. Kissed and kissed and kissed until his lungs burned and his fingers ached with how badly he wanted to hold him.

A final meal for a dying man.

Michael’s tears felt wet on Rich’s cheeks, and Rich wanted to tell him it was beautiful, but he couldn’t say anything at all. 

Rich stumbled away, towards the stairs.

He was ready to ignite.


	30. Chapter 30

Warning

Warning

Warning

Warning

From within Rich's head, a siren blared. A siren and

"Seriously, where the FUCK can I get some Mountain Dew Red?"

Maybe if he shouted it enough, someone else would latch on. Like maybe if he kept saying it, he could stop this for someone else. Not everyone was built of the same matchsticks as Rich Goranski. Not everyone needed to burn. Maybe Jeremy could be saved, or any of the countless others, and oh god oh GOD he was the one who’d told Jeremy in the first place, told everyone, had spread these devices around the school and burning himself could never absolve him fully from

Warning

Warning

Warning

"Would it have killed you to give me a warning?"

Would it have killed you

Would it have killed you

Would it have killed

Killed you

Killed you

Killed

Rich stared at Jeremy. Angry, rightfully so. There was so much Rich never warned him about, never told him. But he couldn’t answer. His words weren’t his own. His throat was an armory, a roadside fireworks stand, a missiles silo, ready to pop. He stared. Stared and stared and tried to remember when he'd gotten into this room. Or when he'd poured gasoline onto his clothes, sticky and tacky and

Warning

Warning

Warning

Warning

"...Rich?"

Jeremy's voice wavered, crashed in on itself. Mountain Dew Red and Warnings and "would it kill you"s and

Yes

Yes it would kill him. Everything had always, always been killing him.

Warning

Warning

"Aw, what's wrong, Emily?" Moses's face twisted and vibrated in and out of frequency. Rich watched him shift, watched the way his hands curled into claws, the way his teeth grew sharp, the way his body seemed so much larger than any house could hold, but he was still the same. Still the same height, still the same body, the same the same

He loved him he loved him he loved him he just

Why couldn’t he make him proud? Why couldn’t he make him proud? Why couldn’t he

Warning

Warning

Warning

Rich found himself upstairs, his favorite room in Jake’s labrinth of a house. Somehow, miraculously, free of any party goers. But the party was dying, wasn’t it? Yes, everything was dying dying dying 

The playroom he and Jake had always built up soldiers and magic and imagination still smelled like mahogany, and he thought of Jake. Jake was with Chloe, or maybe with the other football players, or maybe with Christine, but either way, Jake wasn't in here. Rich was though. Rich was here, and he tore open the floorboards and found their stash, porno mags and cigarettes and

Matches.

He needed a baptism. He needed to cleanse himself. He needed to swim in flames and he needed he needed he needed

He needed his mom.

"We both know you're not going to do it," Moses said.

His hands wrapped around Rich's neck. A warning vice. "Go on. Strike a match. Show me what a man you are now." He laughed. "You won't do it. You never do anything. Now. Put the matches down, and let's go home. I'll show you a real show."

Rich's thumb pricked over the edge of the matchbook. They'd stolen these from his father, and run home with them and pretended to smoke a cigarette together.

Jake had held it wrong. And Rich had inhaled it wrong. But as they hacked and coughed and wheezed, they'd laughed. It was so grown up. So mature. 

Rich tore off a match. He thought about how it'd felt, when he'd doused himself in gas in the garage. His hair felt soaked and dirty and clingy and

His skin felt even worse. How could anyone exist with skin as tight, as constricting, as human as this?

The spark caught, and Rich's eyes moved towards Moses.

And he watched his features flicker in, out, in, out

On, off.

And watched the smile drop from his face as Rich dropped the flame onto his own chest.

"Wait-"

There was a moment, a brief pause where nothing much seemed to happen at all.

An entire universe could be built in such a moment.

And then, just as suddenly, everything was orange. And this became all that Rich had ever, and would ever know.


	31. Chapter 31

The house smelled like pancakes and sausage links. Rich sat upright, a bed too big for his body, and he felt the cool, satin sheets drip down his body.

His pajamas were plaid, and his toes curled inward as he looked down at them. He blinked, running a hand through his hair, arching his back.

His chest felt so smooth, flat, fitting perfectly within his shirt. He smiled faintly, tugging at the oversized pajama top to keep from exposing his stomach, as his bare feet hit the hardwood of the floor.

The staircase was spiraled, an elaborate display of opulence and wealth and comfort. He ran his hand over the rail, considering sliding down it.

There'd be time for that.

His feet pattered as he took each step, each movement floating and wavy and freeing. He smiled, skidding against the first floor, the ground waxed and shined to such a hue that it almost hurt. It was so bright.

Everything was so bright. Warm. 

And it smelled like food. His mouth watered, and though he didn't know how he knew the way, he took himself towards the kitchen.

The woman was small, though not as small as Rich, her butterscotch hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Her shirt fell off her shoulder, and the tone didn't match the vibrant yellow of her pants. She had the style of a woman who held no style whatsoever.

And Rich's heart swelled so suddenly, so completely, that he was certain it would leak from his eyes, that he'd start crying before they even had a chance to eat.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," She said without looking away from the skillet. She flipped one of the pancakes, which promptly missed on the rebound. It hit the ground, Her laughter was infectious, bright. 

"No matter. Gambit will eat that."

As if cued, the dog wagged his tail as he ran into the room, his snout digging into half-cooked batter. Rich's fingers shifted, an urge to pet the dog quickly snuffed out as the woman finally turned to look at him.

Her eyes were a dark brown, and her skin was a cinnamon spattering of freckles, and she smiled as if she knew a secret that she was going to let the whole world on, just because she was too kind to hold anything back.

His chest tore open. "Mom," He breathed. He took one, two, three stuttering steps forward, his knees giving out.

She shouldn't have caught him. Her arms were so thin, her body so frail, but she cradled him as if he weighed nothing at all, her lips pressing to his forehead.

"Rich," She stroked his hair, and his tears grew hotter as he realized she'd never known this name for him. Had never known him as anything but Emily. But she transitioned so effortlessly that any doubts he may have had, any guilt about killing what had been her daughter, floated away from him like so many bubbles. "My son," She sank to the ground, holding Rich against her. "My good boy, my sweet son. I've missed you."

"I missed you so much, mama," Rich sobbed. His hands clutched to the back of her shirt, his entire body vibrating. "I missed you. I missed you. Please don't go again."

She remained silent, her breathing steady and warm and he could feel it against him. Like she'd never stopped. Like she never would stop again. His body blistered under her love, and he never wanted to feel anything but this for the rest of his life.

"Son?"

But it wasn't her voice. The sound circled around them, and then began to pry.

"Son, can you hear me?"

It wasn't the son of a father or mother. It was a stranger, a stranger implying a bond that had never been, would never me. Rich had drifted back, only holding onto his mother's shoulders by his fingertips. He stared at her, watched as clouds shifted over her features.

"Mama..."

"I'm so proud of you," Her voice was hazy, sad, distant, a low sound through a distant tunnel. His arms stretched like taffy, barely attached, but he couldn't let go. He couldn't. He couldn't. "So proud of you. My son...my precious little boy..."

"Everyone, give him some space!"

"Mom! Mama! No! NO! Don't let them take me, please, please, I don't want to go! I want to stay with you! Mama, don't let them take me!"

"So proud..."

"He's coming to. Everyone, back up!"

The pancakes burned on the stove. The smell was sickly sweet and human and toxic and Rich choked and coughed as the smoke swirled around him, tight noxious heat. 

And then he was flat on his back, staring at the stars. Jake moaned in pain, arm draped over him protectively, as an EMT struggled to pull him off. His legs were twisted and contorted and limp. Rich stared, and tried to speak, but the pain was so alive that nothing came out but a last lingering whimper of "mama."

A twitch in his hand drew his attention to the right. Michael stared straight ahead, and the space where their fingers met was unmarked, eerily clean despite the tumultuous black smoke that covered his hoodie and his cheek. He seemed unmarred other than this, the occasional blink rustling his eyelashes.

And then he was being lifted, his connections severed once again onto gurney and elevation. An oxygen mask fitted over his face, and seemed to agitate skin that felt ready to peel. What was holding his skin onto his bones? What was holding him onto this earth? Gravity seemed too abstract a concept to accept. WHat if he just stopped believing in it truly, and let himself float away?

"You're going to be okay, son," The paramedic said, though Rich was strapped in a way that he couldn't turn his head to see him.

And he'd already forgotten his mother's voice again.


	32. Chapter 32

Part 4

Chapter 1

"Feels like you're missing a part of yourself, doesn't it?"

Rich wanted to look at Jeremy, after spilling everything to him in his sleep. He wanted to look at him, and maybe he wanted to latch onto him, and maybe he still wanted his mom, or his squip, or a thousand other things that he could never, ever have.

"Hurts like a motherfucker, too," He added, and tried to inject some levity into his words.

Everything would be alright, the doctors said, the psychiatrists said, and Rich himself would say, in the later days when Jeremy would cry and crave a sense of purpose that Rich had no idea how to give.

Everything would be alright.

But for now, Rich focused on Jeremy. Awake, living, speaking, existing. The breath and stuttered questions and answers and solitude of a single, non-guided existence.

And maybe being alright didn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.

For now, Rich lay hypnotized by the sound of Jeremy's body. And that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it’s been one long journey but this marks the end. I want to thank everyone who has read this. It means the world to me. Every kudos and comment really got me through this. I hope you enjoyed the fic and thank you again for giving my silly little idea a chance!


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